BSG: S5, Episode Three: Said the Spider to the Fly
by MissiAmphetamine
Summary: In this episode... Romo attends a Council meeting, romance is in Landfall's air, Lee & Starbuck try to make it work, Starbuck hangs with a friend, Lee feels the guilt, & Romo throws an awkward dinner party... Plus - the best expression of love via metaphor ever. (Sequel to "Is This What You Wanted?") -End of Chapter 4 and all of Chapter 5 have been rewritten-
1. In the Arena - Eight am

Disclaimer: I do not own Battlestar Galactica or any of the characters etc

_Author's Note: _Well, we've reached Episode Three at last. Thank you to everyone who has reviewed on the series so far – you are absolutely the best. I appreciate your comments immensely.

This episode occurs over the span of one day, and is mostly Romo Lampkin focused, and is…well, read it and you'll see :)

Enjoy!

# # #

"We've had multiple attacks in the past few weeks, according to the reports I got two days ago. And with so few people that are experienced with handling weapons, patrols and hostile situations, we're losing people. A lot of people."

Romo listened as Dianna Eyrie; the current delegate for Beta – the second-largest settlement on this continent – spoke up in regards to the situation with the native proto-humans.

He sat with a quietly intent expression, fingers steepled under his chin, face seeming naked without his dark glasses on; lying on the table in front of him. Romo suppressed a yawn – an entire day of soothing tempers and trying to get the notoriously _disagreeable_ Councillors to discuss the topics on the agenda without bloodshed. First were the monthly reports from Beta and Wideskies, next the issue of the ongoing hostilities with the natives, and then discussing the attempted assassination on himself, before finally getting on to the everyday issues that arose in running the settlement. It was going to be a very, very long day.

Gerard Taft, the delegate for Wideskies, interjected his opinion vigorously as Dianna Eyrie paused and shuffled through her sheaf of papers, Taft's Aerilon accent thick,

"It's the same for us. The messenger runner brought in the report four days ago, and it's the same situation for us. Wideskies is an open basket for the natives to plunder. We're stretched right down the river because of the need for our agriculture to be near water – but our position is indefensible spread out as we are. And we can't just cluster our homes together, because if we did that the natives would just raid our fields in the night, without us even being aware of it."

"Maybe you should do that. They're just crops, Mr Taft. What would you rather lose, crops or human lives?"

Romo's head swivelled to Terence Sheridan; son of an extremely rich entrepreneur on Gemenon, member of Landfall's Council, and a man with an inflated sense of his own importance. Himself, Terence had only ever achieved the position as the captain of one of his father's many ships but his upbringing unfortunately had instilled him with many qualities, and none of them good. Or so Manya had informed Romo. His gaze flicked to her, sitting opposite him and rubbing at her temples as though a headache threatened.

Gerard Taft did not take Sheridan's comment well, face slowly turning boiled red as he stared at Sheridan bulging-eyed with anger.

"Crops _are_ human lives, you thick fool! If our food is gone, what do you suggest we eat? We're none of us hunters, and no one can live on meat alone anyway! We would love to not be getting raided, and wounded or killed by the savages every few days, but if we leave our crops undefended they'll be utterly destroyed by the natives! The savages destroy anything they can't take with them! Bastards."

Taft scowled at Sheridan and huffed a breath,

"If we spent the time and effort needed to abandon the homes we've built or tear them down, and build new ones huddled together, we'd just end up losing more of our crops than we already have. No. That won't work. What we need is need more protection."

"Then protect _yourselves_! What the frak do you want Landfall to do? Make _ourselves_ more vulnerable to attack because you can't defend yourselves?"

Romo tapped the little gavel he had control of on the table, calling for silence before the meeting degenerated into outright argument, and inwardly wished for calm and patience. These meetings tried his bloody nerves. Once a fortnight they met, not counting any extra emergency meetings that might be called in a crisis, and this was Romo's first meeting since the attempt on his life almost two weeks ago. The Council had wanted to call an emergency meeting earlier – because of the attack – but Romo had rejected that suggestion, saying it could wait until the usual time. He had been in no hurry to return to this chamber, and the inane and petty disagreements that consumed it all too often.

The Council had protested of course, and met without his presence to discuss the issue of the dissidents, but without Romo there they could take no actions. His presence and vote were required for any motions to pass. At the end of the day, Romo Lampkin was the President, and if he wished to override the Council he could. Not that he had so far – one's political position would always be somewhat tenuous, and to insult the Council by dismissing their votes would be to turn them against him. And Romo had no doubt that if they could band together, the Council could find a way to have him legally removed from the Presidency. He had to step with care and tact, metaphorically speaking.

"Mr Sheridan, you are out of order."

Romo told the ex-Captain calmly, his face set in a mild and unreadable expression.

"The delegate from Wideskies is out of order if he expects us to risk ourselves because _they_ can't adequately protect their own people!"

"Mr Sheridan." Romo said warningly, and the man subsided back into his chair, still fuming but silent. Neither Sheridan nor Romo had any love lost between them, and Sheridan often opposed Romo's decisions merely because they were Romo's idea. Sheridan was a thorn in Romo's side. But the man had Weston Tercel and Finn Jeffries' continual support, which gave him just enough power to be dangerous.

"Ms Eyrie, Mr Taft…unfortunately, we here at Landfall have barely enough qualified people to cover our own patrols."

Looks of betrayal and unsurprised anger were directed at him by Eyrie and Taft; Romo had always been the first one to insist that Beta and Wideskies deserved just as much aid and support as Landfall. Romo continued calmly,

"But I move that we send Beta and Wideskies one – one – of our ex-military personnel Landfall Patrol Officers each, along with a small number of guns, and a good supply of the homemade bullets we have been laying in a stock of. The LPO's can train up a number of the Beta and Wideskies people, and then once they are satisfied with the level of training, return to Landfall."

There was a brief silence. Manya raised an eyebrow at Romo and he barely perceptibly shook his head 'no'.

"I second the President's fine suggestion." Kari Eldon spoke up in her brusque tone, hands folded neatly in her lap, looking every bit as dignified as ever. Romo smiled inwardly.

"Shall we vote, then?" There were nods; enthusiastic from some, reluctant from others.

"All in favour of sending a LPO to Beta and Wideskies each – until the local residents have been trained – along with weapons and a stock of Earth-made bullets, raise your hand."

Kari Eldon, Manya Yelizarov, Joseph Ababa, and Sarah, a Cylon Eight, were for the motion, along with Romo. Terence Sheridan, Weston Tercel, Finn Jeffries and Saul Tigh were against, their hands staying firmly down. Romo quirked a questioning eyebrow at Tigh, who seemed to ruminate for a second and then spoke up gruffly,

"I think we should send, and leave 'em there. Civilians just can't shape up to military standards. We won't really notice the lack of two men here, but it'd make a big difference to the people in Beta and Wideskies."

Romo didn't show his surprise at Tigh's suggestion. He had anticipated Tigh would be against weakening Landfall's defences, even if only slightly.

"Agreed, Colonel Tigh. All in favour of amending the motion?"

It passed, with only Sheridan, Tercel and Jeffries against.

The next on the agenda was the general threat from the natives, and how to deal with them. The current tactic was purely defensive, and Romo thought it was the only ethical option. It was a bad situation – the natives were in fact killing colonists, but Romo was unwilling to go on the aggressive and actively hunt down the natives. This land was the proto-humans territory, and the colonists were transgressing upon it – when seen from the natives' perspective, Romo couldn't in good conscience blame the proto-humans for attacking the colonists. In their primitive minds, they were doing the right thing defending their territory from the strange and dangerous interlopers.

Of course, ethics and good conscience didn't stop colonists from getting wounded or killed, and it didn't stop the natives from attacking.

"…They're growing more aggressive as time goes on. Lost their fear of us. They've seen we can be made to bleed and die, and they've declared godsdamned guerrilla warfare on our people. We can't let this keep happening. Something needs to be done." Tigh was speaking on the need to take further steps – to attack the natives in retaliation, and perhaps discourage them from their raids. Romo could see heads nodding around the table, but there was a lot of disagreement too. It was an issue that divided the Council – not much different from any other issue then. Trying to get the Councillors to agree on something, even something minor and administrative, was like trying to herd cats. Angry hungry cats.

"I agree. We need to be proactive. What is the expression…the best defence is a good offence? If we made an organised strike on the tribes, perhaps their large losses would _persuade_ them to give up their attacks." Weston Tercel added, his eyes hard in his wrinkled face, cultured voice shaky with age but still carrying an aura of charisma and command.

Kari Eldon shook her head, steel grey hair not moving an inch, so tightly was it drawn back into the severe bun that was her trademark.

"I also agree that the current situation is not tenable, but I balk at the suggestion that we attack the tribes. I have no desire to emulate what was perpetrated on us by the Cylons – no offence intended Sarah –"

"None taken."

"– albeit on a smaller scale. If we attack the tribes on their home ground, there will be little way to avoid harming non-combatants – women, children and any elderly the proto-humans may have. Even if we do not directly harm them, the loss of their hunters would be a devastating blow. From what has been observed, the tribes live on the verge of starvation constantly. If we kill even half their hunters, it may well wipe out the entire tribe." Kari Eldon's decisions were always logical and well thought out, and influenced strongly by her concept of decency and ethics.

"Well what's the problem with that?" Tigh growled, and Manya shot him a shocked look, provoked into anger – very unusual for her,

"You surely can't be promoting the idea of committing _genocide_!"

"Well why not? They aren't any good to us. The talk when we made landfall on Earth was of intermixing our genes with theirs, expanding the gene pool, helping them evolve. Living in harmony." The last few words were dryly mocking,

"But I can't see that happening, now, Ms Yelizarov."

"They are sentient beings! We can't just wipe them out!"

"I agree with Manya. Genocide is not ever an acceptable option." Everyone looked at Sarah, and she blushed, looked down and then back up around the room at the staring faces,

"Well I should know, shouldn't I?" She answered their unspoken remarks defensively, and then fell silent, head bowed as though she wished she'd never spoken.

It was not easy for Sarah to be the only Cylon on the Council. Her presence, had in fact, been protested vehemently by everyone other than Tigh, Kari and Manya – and of them, only Manya had spoke in outright support of the Cylon. But Romo had felt it was important, as a gesture of good faith, and to ensure the Cylons knew that there would be a voice speaking out in protection of their interests.

Romo cleared his throat to speak, to moderate the tone of the discussion and calm the tense atmosphere, but was overridden by Tigh,

"The idea was to interbreed with them – and stupid frakked up idea that was in my opinion. But at any rate, it certainly isn't going to happen now. Approach one of their women – or men – and you're gonna get yourself speared through the chest. Besides, who's actually going to want to frak one of them savages?" Tigh shuddered and shook his head,

"So what do we do? Huh? We sure as hell ain't frakking them, so why let them keep attacking us and holding back on attacking them? I reckon we attack their little home villages and deal them a blow. Might be enough to force them to go find new territory, away from us. And there, problem solved."

A general chaos of protests erupted, people yelling over each other, the meeting dissolving into a hubbub of voices. Romo gritted his teeth. He would not get irritated. He would not get irritated. The pains that still ached at his abdomen did not help Romo's patience, and he drew a deep breath, silently counting to ten.  
"No! That's unacceptable!" Sarah.

"Hang on now, the man makes a good point." Terence.

"We can't seriously be considering this, Mr President?" Manya.

"It is unethical to the highest degree! If the motion is brought, I will not vote in favour." Kari.

The noise grew and grew, until all that could be heard was general anarchic squabbling. Romo felt as though he were in charge of a kindergarten.

"Order!" Romo rapped his gavel but the sharp noise was lost in the din.

"_Order_!" He demanded louder, a headache stirring to pounding life. Gods, these people were bloody insufferable. He wondered, as he tried in vain to return order to the table of arguing Councillors, why he just hadn't just enacted a dictatorship. It would be _so_ much more peaceful.

# # #

The morning sun was shining in through the cabin's opened shutters, and the room smelt of dates and figs, a warm breeze whisking in the open door. Lee stood with his hands deep in a bucket of hot water and dishes, searching around for the soap-root that was lurking somewhere in the bucket, to scrub the few mugs and plates. Kara had made a batch of strangler fig jam and several bottles of date palm wine this morning. Lee wasn't quite sure how the jam was going to turn out – Kara wasn't exactly known for her cooking skills – but the scent of it filled the air, and Kara was sitting at the table eying the dozen glass jars full of fresh-made jam proudly. She had insisted they use glass jars – the jam would keep the longest in them, and Lee hadn't wanted to argue the point, even though he felt self-conscious and hypocritical using technology from the Fleet. No, Lee didn't want to argue with her. Things were fragile enough without picking a fight.

Lee reminded himself that he should just be happy that Kara had come back. The day after they had frakked – the day he had threatened Paulla; gods he hated remembering that – Kara had sought Lee out at the logging site, and told him she wanted to try again. At the time she had seemed more resigned than happy or hopeful, and a part of Lee's mind had wondered if it was the right decision – but he couldn't say no. He couldn't help it; he loved her. In the week since, Kara had been a little distant, and okay, so they hadn't had sex again yet. But she curled up in bed with him every night, and she didn't disappear into town as often as she used to. She seemed…subdued, but Lee hoped that the awkwardness would fade. Things had been tough for both of them lately, and they had a lot of stuff to work past – but given a bit of time, Lee knew things could get better. After all, they still loved each other. He knew that for a fact; Kara had told him that she loved him at the logging site, and he had looked into her serious eyes and believed she was telling the truth. Sometimes he just wondered if that was enough.

The past several days had gone past in awkward domesticity. Both of them were trying to be considerate of the other, walking on eggshells, and never really relaxing. It was frakking exhausting, to be honest. Lee pulled himself out of the downward spiral of depressing thoughts and shook of the cloud of tension that hung over him. Made an effort to be bright and cheerful and forget about the negatives. Dwelling on them wouldn't help.

"So, what shift are you working today?" Lee stacked the dishes on the wooden plank bench and dried his hands on his pants, turning around. Kara sat with a beam of sunlight hitting her, blonde hair shining and skin browned and glowing. Gods, she was beautiful. She glanced up, edgy,

"Um. I, ah, I'm not."

"Oh, really? So I get you all to myself today, then?" Lee sauntered up behind her and draped his arms around her, kissing the back of her head. Kara wriggled uncomfortably and he let her go without a word. She wasn't much for touching these days. Lee accepted it as best he could, and just kept telling himself things would get better. Occasionally he wondered if he was fooling himself.

"I don't know. I thought of maybe taking a few jars of fig jam into Landfall and seeing if I can swap them at Trader's."

She got up and began storing the jars in the rough little cupboard that made up their pantry, leaving half a dozen on the table. Lee stood by the table and watched her, gnawing on his lip.

"You want me to come?" He asked at last, and she froze in the process of stacking the last few jars on the shelves, her back stiff and radiating tension. Lee's heart sank.

"I'd… There's no need to. I'm sure you've got work to do around here."

Here she said, not home. Lee caught the wording and wondered if it was a slip or if he was reading too much into it. He rubbed his hand over his mouth and jaw, and sighed.

"No, not really. Nothing that can't wait until tomorrow. I'd be happy to go with you." Lee took away Kara's excuse, wondering what she'd do – if she'd keep coming up with reasons why he couldn't go with her, or if she would be glad that they could spend the day together. Lee managed a tight, humourless smile. He was pretty sure he knew what Kara was going to do.

She closed the cupboard doors and turned slowly to face him.

"Oh."

"So, should I come? We could go to Joe's, have a drink?"

"I don't know..." Kara's eyes were darting about as she searched for an excuse, and Lee felt like shit, standing there like an idiot while Kara tried to think of reasons that would get her away from him. Gods, how pathetic was he?

"Frak it. Just go, Kara. I'll stay here." He stomped sulkily over to her packet of baccy on a shelf by the windowsill and rolled up a smoke clumsily, unaccustomed to doing so. He was sick of fighting a frakking uphill battle, with Kara edging away from him every step he took. He knew she had feelings for him, but…maybe that wasn't enough.

"Lee… Don't be like this."

"Like what, Kara?" He stuck the mangled cigarette in his mouth and lit it, the smoke curling harshly into his lungs. He wasn't a smoker himself, except for the odd rare indulgence, but he needed to take his anger out on something, and long, angry draws on the cigarette – the nicotine in the native tobacco flooding his system – seemed to oddly relax him.

"You're angry." She crossed the room and touched his arm, looking up into his face. He didn't shift his gaze, just stood staring through the small window over the forest sloping down to the plains and Landfall – visible from this high up on the ridgeline. He wanted to look at her. Wanted to kiss her. Wanted to frak her.

"Why shouldn't I be?"

"I just need some time to myself. It's not you…"

"Bullshit." He glanced sharply at Kara and then back out the window, eyes squinting into the sun.

"You get 'time to yourself' all the godsdamned time. Even when we're home together one of us is usually in the house and the other outside working in the garden or something." He inhaled sharply, tobacco smoke tasting strong and strange in his mouth.

"It's an excuse, Kara, and we both know it. You just don't like being around me."

"I – I do."

"Then let's go to bed. Hell, we don't even have to go to bed. Frak me, Kara – right here. Come on. Right by the window – just bend over. No one'll be watching." Lee's voice was swamped with bitterness. He realised that there was no way in hell she would take him up on that offer, even if he had asked less crassly. Besides, Kara had never cared about crass before. Even a month ago, that proposition would've gotten him laid, but not today.

Instead Kara gave him a pained look, and Lee grimaced, nodding as she affirmed what he had already known.

"See."

"I just…that's not it! Godsdamnit Lee, don't you ever think of anyone but yourself?"

He bristled at that. He'd spent every moment ever since they got together on this damned planet thinking about Kara. Thinking about her needs – about how he had to not push commitment. How he couldn't bring up the idea of having children. How he could never question where she went, alone, so often. He had bent frakking over backwards for her, and she never did a godsdamned thing for him. He was sick of trying so hard and getting nothing in return.

And he lost his carefully held temper and told her so, finishing with the topper,

"Don't _you_ ever think of anyone but _yourself_? What about me? You can't deny I frakking do things for you, what do you do for me, huh? What have you _ever_ done for me?"

Kara flinched and took a step back, undisguised hurt flashing over her face.

"Shit, I'm sorry, Kara. I didn't mean it like that. I'm just… It's hard, all right?"

"That's not a good enough excuse any more, Lee. It's hard for me too, but I'm not the one snapping your frakking head off every time you do something I don't like. I do things for you. Of course I do, and you know it. It's just…okay, so you do more – is that my fault? It comes with the territory, Lee. I'm a package deal – me _and_ my frakking baggage. If you can't deal with it and can't be with me, that's…well I'll cope, but if you accept me, baggage and all, then you have to stop frakking treating me like shit when I make requests or you need to make allowances for my…baggage. Okay?"

Lee was stunned. That made sense – everything she had just said was perfectly fair, and perfectly sensible. He suddenly felt like an unfair bastard for yelling at her. She was right. Lee stared at Kara. Grabbing a bag out of the corner and carrying it to the table, hair falling over her face in a corn-silk coloured fall, bare arms wiry and skin smooth, and dark hollows under her eyes. He was at least partially responsible for those dark circles.

"Okay. I – I can do that. I'm sorry I've been a demanding ass." He agreed hastily, then quietly added on,

"But…Kara? Do you want to be with me? I mean, really?"

Kara looked at him contemplatively for a long moment.

"Yes." She told him, and started shoving the half-dozen jars of fig jam for Trader's into the leather bag. Lee stood by the window, breeze on his face, cigarette burnt down to a butt, feeling oddly calmer. Although it could have been just the nicotine. He stubbed it out on the sill, making sure it was completely snuffed before he tossed it out the window – not taking care was the way you started a fire that burnt your home to ashes.

"I'm going." Kara stated bluntly, face defiant on him, just waiting for him to protest again,

"You're not going to make a huge frakking fuss about it?"

Lee stayed calm as she verbally poked at him, smiled at her,

"No. I'm not."

Kara wanted to be with him. She'd had to think about it, but she had thought about it and decided that _yes_, she wanted to be with him. That counted for a lot right now. What with Romo, the dissidents, Paulla…everything…it was nice to still have one thing that was genuine and mutual, however difficult and fragile that one thing might be.

"Good. Thanks, Lee." Her tone and face softened as she looked at him, and then strode over to where he was standing, and kissed him gently and long on the mouth. It had been so long since they'd done, well, _anything_, that even a lingering kiss was like a mouthful of water to a dehydrated man – heavenly, and all too brief.

"Bye." He said, grinning like an idiot as Kara disappeared out the door, and she called back to him with a teasing laugh in her voice,

"Oh! That reminds me! Don't cook dinner – we'll be going out."

"_What_? _Where_? Joe's?" Lee stuck his head out the door, calling after Kara, but she had already hurried out of view – probably on purpose, if her teasing tone had been any indication. Godsdamnit, he hated surprises. They would be going out?

"_Damnit_. Now what the _frak_ is that supposed to mean?"

# # #

"Shouldn't we be making arrests? We surely can't leave the dissidents unpunished. We need to make it clear that we will not suffer such acts of violence."

"An understandable reaction, Mr Tercel, but who exactly are we supposed to arrest? And what good do you think that will do?" Romo leaned back in his chair at the head of the table, head pounding in time with the pulse in his temples. He thought he had managed to keep his face smooth and blank, but Manya made a sympathetic expression from the other end of the table. She always noticed those sorts of things more than others. A big part of it was probably the psychology and sociology that the twenty-nine year old university professor had lectured on back on Libron. She noticed little things that the other Councillors– hopefully – didn't notice. Romo didn't want to look anything other than cool, calm and totally in control in front of the Council. Too many enemies. And of course, Manya Yelizarov knew Romo better than the others. They had known each other before the attack on the Colonies. Gods that seemed so bloody long ago now. Another lifetime.

"Who would we arrest? Lee Adama, for one. He's the leader of the dissident movement – if we take him away, we're cutting off their head, so to speak. And as for what it would accomplish, well, it would show that we won't allow the dissidents to get away with things like the attack on your life, Mr President." Tercel responded in a measured manner, and Romo pulled his mind back to the present.

"Hmm." Romo tapped his fingers on the table. Fiddled with his glasses – made Tercel wait for a response. It was a way of signalling his position of authority, maintaining his place as being above Weston Tercel's in the hierarchy. Tercel shifted, annoyance flickering on his wrinkled features.

"Unfortunately, Mr Tercel, the dissident movement is somewhat of a Hydra. Cut off one head, and it will grow two more. At the moment, Lee Adama is the Hydra's head – and a moderate one, at that – arrest him, and you allow the more…_fanatical_ members of the movement to take his place. The movement would not be cowed by Lee Adama's arrest – in fact, I believe it would be _energised_." Romo paused and when Tercel opened his mouth to speak, Romo held up a hand for silence. Tercel frowned and subsided reluctantly, mouth down turned and hooded eyes sharp.

"As to your second point, Mr Tercel, I respectfully remind you that creating martyrs is not the most efficient form of subduing a movement. As far as Colonel Tigh," A nod to the glowering Colonel,

"…could ascertain, Lee Adama was not involved in the attack on myself last week. We _suspect_ that members of the movement, other than the young man who attacked me, were involved, but there is no way to prove involvement. No, arrests at this point would only fuel the fires."

There was a low murmur around the table, which sounded like dissatisfaction and disagreement.

"I think we need to make some godsdamned arrests, myself, Mr President. We need to show that we aren't to be frakked with, or they'll just do it again." Tigh burst out, striking a fist on the tabletop to emphasise his point.

"I agree. You could've been killed Mr President. Will they stop with one attempt, or will they try it again?" Finn Jeffries added. A bluff logging company owner from Virgon, he was similar to Tigh in his level of ability to comprehend tact.  
"My level personal security has been raised. I have either Colonel Tigh or another LPO with me at all times. The level of security within and around Landfall has been lifted as much as possible, and LPO's have been warned to keep a particular eye on visitors from the dissident movement."

"Shouldn't be allowing them in town at all." Jeffries' complained to himself and Romo ignored the interruption, continuing,

"Not to mention we are expecting an attack now – we are on our guard. I think it unlikely that another assassination attempt will succeed in the near future, and I think the dissidents are smart enough to realise that, and thus will not attempt one."

"We can't just leave it! We have to make a show of force, or their impression will be that we are weak – easily walked over." Sheridan added to the protests. Where were all Romo's allies on the Council board, to speak up and add their weight to his side of the problem? Answer: he had none, except for Manya. Sheridan, Jeffries and Tercel had allied themselves, and usually voted together on an issue. Sarah leaned toward Romo's position, and the remaining Councillors voted neutrally, without thoughts of alliance.

Romo raised an eyebrow at Manya. He didn't like calling on her as his first supporter too often – it looked suspicious – but he needed at least one voice in support, to tip the undecided Councillors to his point of view. Romo did not want Lee Adama to be arrested. Paulla could not be allowed control of the dissidents.

"If we are seen to be persecuting those who cannot be charged of any crime, the colonists within Landfall will become distrustful of us. The people will think – 'if the Council can throw the dissident colonists in jail on mere _suspicions_, who is to say we will not be next?' To make arrests will only undermine our position with our own people. And as you said yourself, Mr Jeffries, we cannot afford weakness at this juncture." Manya spoke clearly and with the calmness of perfect self-assurance, an earnest expression moulding her extremely symmetrical features.

"And what good will it achieve? As the President so insightfully pointed out,"

Here Romo gave her a disbelieving expression and mouthed, 'insightfully?' That was laying it on a bit thick. Manya's lips quirked and her eyes glittered playfully.

"…arresting Lee Adama will not dissolve the movement, only incite it."

"I agree. I think moderation is the wisest course of action for now. I move that we table the issue for now, and return to it at a later date. Say, in two months time – unless any developments occur between now and then." Kari Eldon, voice of logic added her two cents, and Romo smiled secretively to himself. Perhaps he could swing this and keep the dissident movement out of Paulla's greedy claws.

Discussion moved swiftly in a surprisingly orderly manner, until Kari Eldon's motion was ready to be voted upon by the Councillors. The result was unsatisfactory, and Romo wished he had hair long and lush enough to be torn out.

Of the ten Councillors and Romo, there were five for, five against – supporting the immediate arrest of Lee Adama – and one abstaining.

Dianna Eyrie refused to vote, saying that as the delegate from Beta, the affairs that only affected Landfall were not her right to vote on.

Then Sheridan and Tercel insisted that Gerard Taft – the delegate from Wideskies, who had voted to let the matter of the dissidents lie for now – be disallowed from voting, for the same reasons Ms Eyrie abstained. Taft refused, vehemently protesting that just as it was Ms Eyrie's right to abstain, as a member of the Council, he had every right to vote. He believed that what affected Landfall, would eventually come to affect the other settlements, and as such, had a vested reason to vote.

Kari Eldon – Romo's side – tried to pressure Ms Eyrie into voting, but Eyrie dug her heels in and refused, although between Sheridan's shouting and Eldon's cold insistent logic, she was near tears within minutes.

Romo sat back and watched chaos envelop the table for the…he figured in his head…fourth time this morning, if you didn't count the spat over when they should have their morning tea break. He no longer had the energy to intervene. It was easy to forget while sitting comfortably that he was less than two weeks out from a gut wound, and still recovering. He rapped the gavel on the table,

"Quiet!"

Nothing happened – the din too loud for them to hear him. Manya was the only one who was not involved in the squabble to some degree, and she cast him one of her enormous supply of sympathetic looks. She indicated herself, then him, raised an eyebrow and cocked her head to the side. Romo, of course, understood exactly what she was inferring, and nodded his head, mouthed, 'please'.

Manya stood; a short woman she was barely taller standing than sitting. She cleared her throat, looked around the table of bickering Councillors, took a deep breath and yelled,

"Silence! At once!" Her voice carried the authority of a teacher, and the din halted for a moment, and Manya seized the opportunity.

"Be silent, everyone! You are behaving like children. Look at you; you are badgering Ms Eyrie, trying to intimidate Mr Taft – shouting at each other. If this were my classroom…well, my students would _never_ behave with such a lack of common decency and decorum." Romo admired Manya's skill at cowing the room of disagreeable adults like they were the young adults she used to teach. For such a tiny woman, she had an extremely loud and frightening voice. She smiled sweetly, said,

"Mr President?"

And sat down again, with a small nod around the room at her fellow Councillors, most of whom sat obediently silent in some degree of shock. Tigh, who was seated nearest Manya, was digging at his ear and squinting, as though Manya had deafened him. Romo would not be surprised.

"Thank you, Ms Yelizarov. Your…carrying…voice must have been a great aid to you as a lecturer." He made his tone dry and light, hoping to ease the tension that filled the Council room like a thick fog. No one laughed, but Sarah smiled and the tension eased noticeably.

"We are obviously not getting anywhere on this topic, and I would rather not spend all day arguing this one matter, and taking up all our valuable time. In the interests of moving on to other issues, I suggest we adjourn for lunch now, table the issue of the dissidents until tomorrow, and resume our usual schedule after the lunch break."

"So we'll just vote on it again tomorrow? How will that help if we're deadlocked?" Sarah asked nervously.

"Perhaps between now and tomorrow, with some thought on the topic, a Councillor might change their mind." Romo held up a hand to halt protests,

"However, if I hear that anyone has been coerced or in any way influenced toward changing their vote, there will be a full investigation of the accused, and sanctions if found guilty, will be severe." That removed any objections.

"All in favour of tabling the dissident issue until tomorrow?"

Thank the bloody gods, the motion passed.

Manya winked at Romo as they all filed eagerly out of the meeting room.

# # #

_Author's Note:_ Right, so, I hoped you enjoyed this chapter, and if so – _please_, leave me a review. They are a big part of what motivates me to keep writing regularly, and as I have had the _worst_ writer's block lately I need all the encouragement I can get.

This episode, as I said in the above Author's Notes, is focused on Romo, and revolves a lot around the political workings of Landfall and the surrounding settlements. It won't go hugely, dryly in depth, but will give a good idea of what the Council does etc.

It also focuses on general character development, and has some setting up/foreshadowing for later character and plot arcs. Original characters too! Let me know how they've turned out! Anyone get the references in a couple of the Councillor's names?

It's been the hardest episode to write so far, especially as my chapters seem to be getting ever longer (this one was 6,358wds *sigh*), and I've kind of lost sight of whether it actually works or not. So constructive criticism and feedback is positively begged for (Review! Review! Review!)

The next chapter should go up on _Thursday/Friday_.


	2. Taking a Vacation - Noon

_Author's Note:_

A huge thank you to everyone who has left reviews on this series! And please, keep feeding the muse :)

This chapter, we get to see the characters in a lighter, more relaxed setting – as the chapter title indicates. I'm having fun just exploring the way characters interact with people when mostly happy and a little bit playful. It's slower on the action and pacing, as this whole episode is, but I like seeing the characters enjoying themselves for once, rather than being tormented by me. If I had to pick a theme for this episode, it would, I think, be _love_ and _self-analysis_…I'm not sure.

This chapter is (on the verge of) an _M-rating_ for slight sexual situations.

_Enjoy!_

# # #

"Frak it's good to be out of that den of bureaucrats. " Tigh shovelled another forkful of lunch into his mouth and scowled across the table at Ellen, who was picking daintily at her food.

"Yap, yap, yap. All they do is argue. Can't come to a decision to save their lives. I don't know why _I_ have to be there. I'm not a paper pusher or a politician; I deal with security, not godsdamned matters of law."

"Saul…I don't know why you hate being on the Council so much. It's a very important position. I like having a husband who wields power." Ellen soothed him with a coy expression, her foot rubbing against his trouser leg under the table. Tigh grunted a sort of laugh and nudged her foot playfully.

"Of course you do. Power hungry maniac you are."

"Well. What can I say? You know me too well."

There was a brief silence as Tigh ate, not looking forward to having to go back into the Council rooms and suffer for the rest of the day. And now with the godsdamned deadlock over the issue of the dissidents, he'd have to sit through it all again tomorrow. He complained to Ellen, sour-faced, peppering his explanation of the deadlock with a generous helping of irritated curses.

"So what did you vote for?" Ellen asked, pushing her half-finished plate away and sipping at a glass of palm wine. She always looked the perfectly poised lady, even in the cobbled together shack they called home now.

"To crack down on the dissident's of course. What do you think I am? A pansy." He shook his head,

"No, the only way to put the dissidents back in their place is to make some arrests. Show them who's the boss around here. And it ain't them."

"So…half the Council wants to arrest Lee?"

"That's right, and I agree. He's the one in charge of the anti-tech brigade, so he's the one who should be held responsible for their frakking crimes." Tigh had no sympathy to spare for Lee these days. The boy had been travelling down a road Tigh didn't agree with for years now. Supporting Roslyn – holding a gun to Tigh's frakking head! Tigh wasn't about to forget that any time soon. Going up against his father during Gaius frakking Baltar's trial, leaving the military to become a godsdamned _politician_, and then turning against the bulk of the colonists on earth. No, Tigh was sick of the boy's attitude. Got his priorities all twisted up in Tigh's opinion.

"But _he_ didn't try and assassinate the President, Saul. It was that boy, Boxey. From what I've heard, Lee had nothing to do with it." Ellen reached over the table and stroked her fingers over Tigh's, a small smile on her face. Tigh sniffed and chewed on his lip. It sounded like Ellen was siding with Lee. Gods – she'd always had a soft spot for the boy. Tigh made a disgusted face.

"That's not the point, Ellen. Lee's in charge of his people – so it's his responsibility to stop them from pulling shit like that. And besides, the idea is to make a statement for tactical reasons. It's about something bigger than just who attempted to kill Lampkin – it's about not letting Lee's godsdamned pet project ruin what we're trying to build here!"

Ellen gave Tigh a gently disappointed look and he growled to himself. Godsdamnit, he couldn't even get away from the issue in his own home.

"He's Bill's son, Saul."

"That doesn't change the situation."

"But it does. You know it. Are you really going to throw Bill's son in jail for something he wasn't involved in?"

"If that's what I have to do."

"I think Romo Lampkin has a point, Saul. Maybe making martyrs isn't the best thing to do right now." Ellen cleared away the dishes, her plain cotton skirt swirling around her still shapely calves. Tigh sipped at his drink and eyed her with pleasure. Still a gorgeous woman, Ellen. Not like him. Chewed up old man, with only the one eye and no sparkling personality to compensate for the lack.

"I'll think about it." And Tigh would. Maybe Ellen and Lampkin were right, but the idea of letting the dissidents essentially get away with violence with no action taken irritated Tigh something fierce.

"Now, can we stop talking about it? I came home to relax, not continue with the godsdamned debate."

Ellen sat down on the bed in the corner; legs folded up under her and smiled at him.

"Of course, Saul."

She looked up at the ceiling and thought for a moment, bottom lip caught between her teeth, and then smiled at Tigh and began talking,

"Well, this morning I finished planting the seeds Tasha gave me the other day, and went out with her and Susan and Lena to pick dates and figs and such. And this afternoon I'm helping at the day-care with the younger children."

This wasn't much better than talking about the dissidents, to be honest. Tigh nodded and drank and nodded some more, and listened with half an ear, bored out of his mind.

"Oh, and Romo Lampkin invited us to dinner at his home tonight."

"What? You didn't say _yes_ did you?"

"Of course I said yes! He's the President – it would be rude to refuse."

"Oh frak." Tigh couldn't think of anything worse than going to Romo's eating the crap they called food while trying to be polite, and trying to make acceptable dinner conversation. _Frak_.

"Come on, Saul. It won't be that bad."

"I don't want to go." He was sulky and gruff, thick eyebrows drawn together as he scowled at his half-empty glass of wine.

He jerked in his chair as, as if from nowhere, Ellen's hands slid from his shoulders down to his chest, her chin resting on one shoulder, mouth to his ear,

"Please, Saul?" She asked very sweetly, voice husky and soft. Tigh pressed his lips together, swore inwardly. His hand reached awkwardly around to clutch at Ellen's ass.

""It's only dinner…" Her lips trailed down his neck, kissing and nipping. Tigh shivered and gave up,

"Fine, I'll go, godsdamnit."

"Thank you, Saul." Ellen crowed with smug triumph, and then squealed as Tigh stood abruptly out of his chair and pulled her into his arms, half-carrying her over to their bed. Tigh dumped Ellen down on the narrow bunk and kissed her throat hungrily, making her wriggle and writhe beneath him, her hands splayed over his back, holding him close on top of her.

"Oh, Saul…" She giggled and moaned as Tigh's hand found its way up underneath the folds of her skirt. He grinned to himself.

They had plenty of time before he had to go back to the meeting…

# # #

Joe's Bar was dimly lit inside, and the book's small black print kept blurring and doubling. Not enough windows, and no artificial lighting in the bar. It was just not satisfactory. Kari Eldon barely lifted a finger for notice, and as if summoned by an invisible force, Joe appeared in front of her table moments later. No one ever ignored one of Ms Eldon's requests for attention.

"Joe, do you happen to have a lamp, or a candle I could use?" Her tone was briskly querying, and Joe nodded immediately.

"I'm sure I have something, Ms Eldon. I'll just go have a look."

"Mm." Kari Eldon placed a bookmark carefully at her place in the book and shut it, laying it neatly on the table. _Legends of Picon: Uncovered_ – a cheap and sensationalist collection of tales of supernatural occurrences and unexplained mysteries that were native to Picon. Not exactly intellectually demanding reading, but it was something to pass the time. So few books had survived to this point that one couldn't be fussy about what one deigned to read.

Her glass of watered palm wine – her second – was quite pleasant, really, although there was no comparison to be made between it and the alcoholic beverages she had enjoyed before the attacks on the Colonies. But it was sweet and thirst quenching, if rather…fresh.

Kari let her mind wander back over the issues regarding the dissidents briefly, before dismissing the line of thought; the vote was to be tomorrow, and she would not be changing hers. No point in dwelling on the matter. Instead she directed her well-ordered mind to go over the issues that were on the afternoon's agenda. It was mostly basic housekeeping, so to speak, and nothing of any great import to be concerned about.

"Here you go, Ms Eldon." Joe interrupted Kari's thoughts, placing a grubby saucer with a large squat candle on it in the centre of her table.

"Thank you, Joe." Again Kari Eldon's tone was firm and cool, a faint smile lightening her severe face ever so slightly. Joe grinned nervously and bobbed his head in a clumsy gesture of respect, before withdrawing.

Kari Eldon opened her book once more, and settled back into her reading with a small sigh of pleasure. Her peacefully undisturbed relaxation was all too short.

"Kari." She glanced up to see Doctor Sherman Cottle seating himself uninvited at her table in the chair opposite.

"How are you?"

She pursed her thin lips to hide the smile that lurked there, and closed her book with precise movements as was always her way, and only then addressed the Doctor.

"Sherman. I was having a quiet lunch."

He smirked at her, pulling out one of his ever-present cigarettes and lighting it off the candle flame that danced between them.

"Disturbed your peace, have I, Kari?"

"Indeed." She waved away the smoke that coiled from Sherman's cigarette and shot him a stony glare, which he blithely ignored.

"A stroke of luck seeing you here. I was just wanting to have a chat about hospital matters with you."

Kari knew perfectly well it was not mere happy chance that Sherman had 'unexpectedly' come across her at Joe's just when he needed to speak with her – he had obviously sought Kari out. She wondered briefly what he wanted, lips pursed into an impatient bud.

"Not here for my delightful company then?"

"Oh, I always enjoy your company, Ms Eldon." Sherman informed her lewdly, waggling his bushy white eyebrows at her, and Kari tried not to blush. Flustered, her hands went to her hair and unnecessarily smoothed her still immaculately neat bun.

"But unfortunately, I need to see you regarding matters of business, not _pleasure_." Sherman put great emphasis on the last word, exhaled smoke curling blue-grey around his head as he spoke. Kari's mind flashed back to their last tryst – several weeks ago now if she recalled correctly. Goodness, had it really been that long? She remembered it with such clarity it could have been yesterday. Her cheeks pinked a little again.

"Well then, Sherman – rather than take my precious time up with preliminaries, why don't you go straight to the point and tell me what it is you want?" Kari was pleased at how brisk and business-like she kept her voice; only the faintest twinkle in her faded green eyes giving away her frivolous thoughts.

"Of course, Kari. I heard recently, from a source who shall remain unnamed, that the Council was sending a raptor up to the orbiting fleet shortly, to stock a small civilian ship with equipment and matériels and land it planetside."

"Oh, did you now?" Kari held in a smile. It was she who had told Sherman about the planned mission, while lying in bed together after their last and rather…energetic…tryst.

"Well, it is by no means _definite_ at this point. The Council has not voted on the matter yet – we will this afternoon, in fact." She narrowed her eyes at Sherman suspiciously,

"Why exactly are you interested?"

Sherman stubbed out his cigarette and lit another, and Kari wrinkled up her nose at the scent. Disgusting habit – the man was a doctor, he of all people should know better. It was only one of many other things that irritated her no end about Sherman. Infuriating man. He leaned back in his chair and tapped his cigarette ash on the floor, then leaned forward over the table.

"I understand that there will be limited space on the ship, and I also understand that equipment for solar panelling and other power generation will take priority – but I was hoping you could do me a favour."

"Perhaps." Kari nodded for Sherman to go on.

"The medical equipment from the Galactica. I left a lot on ship because we had no power down here – it would have all been more than useless. But if we're getting electricity sorted out…well, all that equipment suddenly becomes incredibly useful."

"You want me to secure a place on the ship for your equipment?"

"I do."

"It seems like a perfectly reasonable request. Why not ask the Council directly, Sherman?"

Sherman shrugged and humour softened his worn and grumpy features,

"Sheridan and Tercel have taken an irrational disliking to me. They would have tried to stick a spanner in the works if I had approached the Council myself, just to be insufferable bastards. Besides," And here he gave Kari a sly look,

"I wanted to see you, of course."

"Humph. Irrational, you say?" Kari responded primly, and then relented,

"But I'm pleased to have seen you, Sherman. It has been…quite some time, hasn't it? Perhaps…"

"We could catch up for dinner?"

"Exactly my thoughts. Would tonight be suitable, or too late notice?"

"Well, I was planning on coming here, sitting around, and being bored witless, but I suppose I could postpone that – for you, Kari."

"My place?" Kari asked and Sherman's foot discreetly nudged against hers under the table, eyes twinkling through the candle flame between them,

"Sounds fine to me." Sherman got to his feet, nodded to Kari with a small secretive smile,

"I'll look forward to it, Ms Eldon."

"As will I, Sherman." Kari nodded in return to him, cool and composed – but her well-ordered mind lost some of its cohesion, and her thoughts ran ahead to _tonight_. Joe's Bar suddenly seemed hotter and more humid, and she fanned herself with her book, feeling flushed as she watched Sherman leave. He might be an infuriating man in public, but by the gods, he was anything but insufferable between the sheets. Kari Eldon smiled her own secretive smile, and fanned herself a little more vigorously.

# # #

There was a soft burbling sound, and Caprica cracked her eyes open, listening. The small noises subsided into sucking sounds, and then small even breaths, and Caprica smiled. She lay bonelessly on her and Gaius' bed, with Pheme snuggled on her back between Caprica and Gaius', the tips of her tiny fingers inserted in her mouth. It was just after lunch, and both Caprica and Gaius had been so exhausted from late nights and endless nappies and feedings and dawn risings, that Tycho and Selah had insisted Gaius take the afternoon off and 'look after his two girls.' So now they all lay in a row on their big bed, Pheme snuffling happily in her dreams between them. A whisk of a breeze wafted in the bedroom window, and a warm sunbeam flickered over the bed as the curtains flapped half-open in the draught. Caprica could hear birds lazily singing in the distance, and insects chirruped nearer by. It was so peaceful. She lay back with her eyes shut, fingertips curling around Pheme's blanket-covered little foot, and breathed deeply and slowly.

Caprica drifted in and out of a happy doze, Pheme still new enough that every little sound made Caprica jerk her eyes open and check the newborn. She ended up curled on her side, facing Gaius, Pheme cuddled against Caprica's body, cheek cushioned against her mother's breast. Gaius was fast asleep, and he snored lightly out of unison with his snuffling daughter, his face relaxed and younger in sleep. Out of the two of them, he had more reason to be exhausted. Caprica only had to look after Pheme, and Gaius not only helped as much as he could with Pheme – except for the feeding of course – but he also worked the farm every day. It was long hard work from nearly dawn until dusk, with only a break in the middle for a leisurely lunch. He came home at sunset dusty and with red-rimmed eyes and aching muscles, but a smile always lit up his face when he saw Pheme in the little crib Selah had built for her. Gaius always had time to snuggle with his daughter, while Caprica cooked up dinner.

And then, when Pheme woke in the night, Caprica would feed her tucked up in bed, and then Gaius would bundle up the sleepy baby and take her out of the bedroom, so Caprica could slip back into blessed sleep. Caprica would stir sometimes in the dark to hear the muted sounds of Gaius talking to the infant; sweet nothings, or long lectures on science in soft tones. He would talk to her and rock her, until Pheme dropped off, and then he would pop her back in her crib at the end of their bed, and crawl in with Caprica. Cool arms encircling her, his body moulding up to hers, lips dropping a kiss on her shoulder or head or back. And then they would sleep, curled up together until the next time Pheme woke with small mewls that grew into squawking cries, cut off as Gaius lifted her into their bed and Caprica latched her on to feed. It was exhausting, it was hard, and it was pure perfection.

Caprica looked drowsily over at Gaius and Pheme, and wondered at how this had happened. She had never expected this. Back on Caprica's namesake planet, when she had met Gaius for the first time, she could never have guessed this was where her life would take her. A long, hard road, and she begrudged none of it, because it had led to this. Her husband and her child, sleeping next to her. She fell into a contented sleep at last herself, a smile on her lips.

# # #

"Oh my gods." Manya Yelizarov panted and rolled gingerly off Romo Lampkin, flopping onto her back beside him. Romo grinned, his own breath coming short, and tilted his face to look at her, sprawled out next to him. Stark naked and glowing pink from exertion, perspiration a sheen on her smooth skin, mouth parted and hair loose and tangled long and dark over the pillow.

"Too bloody right." He found her hand and interlaced their fingers, squeezing. Gods that had been good. He shifted on the bed, propping himself up on his pillows and wincing with the movement. She looked sharply at him, rolling onto her side propped up on her elbow,

"Oh – did that hurt you?"

"Negligibly." Romo shrugged it off, hand unconsciously going to the vivid scars on his abdomen. Two smaller stab wounds, and a long scar where the third knife thrust had hit his spleen, and Doc Cottle had opened him up to remove it. They did hurt a bit, a strange sharp pulling sensation that emanated throughout his abdomen achingly. Manya frowned,

"You should have told me, Romo."

"But then you would have stopped."

"Well…yes, I suppose I would. I do not want to hurt you, Romo."

He smiled, fingers trailing down over her breasts and belly, and then up over the curve of her hip.

"Exactly why I didn't tell you. A bit of pain is worth _that_."

"Why thank you, Mr President." Manya smirked smugly and shifted on the pillows, staring into Romo's eyes, lazy and self-satisfied.

"You're very welcome, Councillor." Romo retorted, his hand coming to rest on the deliciously smooth swell of her ass, kneading it absentmindedly.

"Again?" She raised a perfectly manicured eyebrow mischievously at Romo, and he groaned and shook his head.

"I wish I could, but that might be pushing it. I unfortunately don't have my stamina back yet."

"You did…adequately…in my opinion." Manya teased lightly.

"Adequate? _Adequate_?"

"You are a god between the sheets, my President – a man of incredible skill and astounding stamina. I lie here in limp, exhausted awe."

"Oh frak you. Bloody evil woman. Give me ten minutes to recover and I'll show you _awe_ alright." Romo poked her in the side and Manya squealed and batted at his hand.

They lay together in comfortable silence for a while, soaking in the warm afterglow of a mutually pleasurable encounter. Romo almost dozed for a short time, hand still clutching Manya's ass possessively, relaxed and…happy. The times when he felt happy had been few and far between for a very long time. There hadn't really been anything to be happy about since the attack on the Colonies – only grief and anger and pain. Loneliness. Guilt. This affair with Manya, tentative and relatively new as it may be, was the first time Romo Lampkin had let himself relax and be happy in years now.

Not that it was a committed relationship – Romo hadn't broached the idea with Manya, and neither had she brought it up. She could probably tell he wasn't prepared for that. One of the benefits – and drawbacks – of sleeping with a psychologist was that they noticed much more than the average person. Not that Manya ever brought up anything she might notice in Romo's behaviour – she wasn't the type to pry where she wasn't invited.

"The meeting this morning…my gods, will we never agree on anything?" Manya opened a topic that had been preying on Romo's mind since silence had fallen over the two of them. He looked over at Manya.

"They are terrible, like children with the way they squabble and bicker." Manya rolled her eyes demonstratively and made a guttural sound of frustration.

"It is hard to be calm when you have people like Sheridan and Tercel yammering away like idiots." She frowned at Romo, combing her fingers through her long curling hair,

"I do not like them."

"Neither do I, but unfortunately they are a encumbrance we can't avoid. The people voted them in, although gods know _why_ anyone voted for them. They're more interested in gaining what little power they can eke out for themselves than protecting the people's best interests. Democracy… has a certain amount of flaws, the way it operates now." Romo chuckled to himself,

"I sometimes amuse myself during the Council meetings by daydreaming about dismantling the Council and setting up a dictatorship. No more petty arguments, no more alliances and rifts, and no more political balancing games…just do it or I'll Colonel Tigh take you out back and shoot you."

"It would certainly be more peaceful. And Saul Tigh would be ever so pleased at the prospect of people to shoot."

"Mm. If only I wasn't too ethical to do it."

"You? Ethical? You are teasing me, Romo." Manya hooked her slim bare leg over Romo's thigh and a mischievous expression flickered over her face.

"I'm extremely ethical for a lawyer. Not that that says much, I suppose. I do my best to take the right course of action, but…"

He sighed and looked up at the ceiling, mulling things over, Manya lying comfortably still and quiet beside him. She was a very restful person to be around. Not that they spent much time together – perhaps a couple of hours a week, and all very clandestine. Romo didn't want people knowing they were seeing each other, even on the casual basis that they did – the Councillors might complain it was a conflict of interest. Or that was what Romo told himself the reason was. Manya might have disagreed, and cited things such as a fear of vulnerability, lingering guilt over his wife's death – but as far as Romo was concerned, politically, it was just easier and safer to stay somewhat distant.

"And now more time trapped with the Councillors tomorrow, thanks to the godsdamned deadlock. A more terrible prospect I can't imagine. Gods, if someone wanted to assassinate me now I'd be bloody thankful." Romo groused, running a hand over his jaw as he tried to think of the best way to break the deadlock in his favour.

"I do not think anyone will independently change their minds between now and tomorrow. They all seemed very set in their opinions." Manya offered usefully.

"Who's the person most likely to be swayed?"

"Ethical, hmm?" Manya prodded and then gasped as Romo took liberties with an intimate part of her person. She stuck her tongue out at him and sat up on the bed with her legs crossed, and gave the matter some serious thought.

"Well, I would say that out of those who could be persuaded to vote the way _you_ want, your best candidate is Saul Tigh."

Romo nodded, sitting up more himself,

"That's what I thought. Thanks, Manya."

"You are very welcome, Mr President." The title took on a whole new meaning when it was her calling him that. A filthy, sexy meaning. He was distracted from his thoughts of Tigh and politics as he gazed at her, now unfolding gracefully from the bed and crossing the room to sponge herself down with cool water from a large bowl. Gods, the way the sponge dripped…water trickling down her back…down…down…it was deadly attractive. He lay back on the bed with his hands laced behind his head, and enjoyed the view.

These stolen afternoons and evenings were deeply satisfying, and Romo suddenly realised uneasily that he had begun to depend on Manya. Privately they indulged in their occasional brief liaisons, and publicly they engaged in open friendship that no one seemed to question or look any deeper into. They had a history of friendly acquaintanceship that went right back to before the attack on the Colonies, and sexual compatibility aside Romo enjoyed having someone to talk openly with.

He watched her wash herself, hands trailing the sponge over every inch of her pale skin; long neck elegant, hair waving in a mass over one shoulder, breasts small and still firm, tipped with pink. Long graceful legs for someone so petite, and an ass that Romo could spend all day admiring. It was mesmerising, lying languid in the glorious afterglow of sex and watching Manya bathe. She was half turned away from him, and Romo saw a small smile tug at her lips in profile; she was putting on a show for him.

He asked without thinking about the ramifications,

"Come to dinner tonight."

She paused, bent over, sponge pressed against her shin, and then finished washing, quickly now, still silent. Romo berated himself inwardly. That had been a godsdamned stupid thing to say. Hadn't he just been thinking how nice it was the way things were? Why did he just go and complicate it?

"Dinner?" Manya asked at last, naked and completely unselfconscious as she hunted out her clothing from around the bed.

Romo gulped.

"Ah, yes. I've invited the Tighs, Kara Thrace and Lee Adama for dinner tonight."

"And you would like me to come to this…dinner?" She asked carefully, slipping her light sundress over her head and wriggling it down into place.

"Well. Um. I just thought…" Romo told himself firmly that now he had asked he couldn't back out. And truth be told, he was slightly horrified to realise he didn't want to. He wanted her to come. What was wrong with him?

"Yes. I would like you to come, Manya."

"As a friend?" She seemed simply and uncomplicatedly interested, and Romo shrugged, swore at himself internally again and nodded.

"I suppose that would be best." He replied neutrally as he struggled off the bed with a grimace of pain.

"You are sure, Romo?"

"It would be an honour." He said gallantly as he briefly splashed himself with water from the bowl.

"Then I shall come to this dinner. I could hardly say no, could I?"

He gave her a querying glance.

"Well, Ellen Tigh, Saul Tigh, Lee Adama and Kara Thrace? They are not exactly the group one would think to assemble for a dinner party. In fact, one would go out of one's way to seat them separately, I should think. This dinner is not to be missed. I anticipate it will be highly interesting." Manya was arch, and Romo grinned as he dressed, some of the tension seeping out of him.

"I wonder at your motives, Mr President." Manya slipped on her shoes and approached Romo, fingers going to his open shirt and buttoning it with small deft movements. He let her, looking down at her – the top of her head level his mouth in the low-heeled shoes she wore. It was oddly intimate; somehow even more so than the sex they had just spent the past hour engaged in. His lips unwittingly found themselves pressed against her hair, and as she finished the last button, she kissed the hollow at his throat lightly. She smelt like incense.

Romo cleared his throat, feeling off-balance.

"You'll have to keep wondering."

"You won't tell me?" She pouted.

"You're supposed to be a smart one, hmm? Figure it out."

"You have a grand plan, do you?" Manya combed her fingers through her hair and began nimbly twisting it into a thick braid.

"Perhaps. Or perhaps I'm just throwing them together for personal entertainment."

"Well, you are unethical, so I suppose I can't rule that out." She smirked at him and then broke into a full grin, nudging his arm with her elbow, still braiding her hair. Her tongue poked out the corner of her mouth as she concentrated, head tilted to the side and the scent of incense wafting off her, and her eyes were glowingly teasing and warm as she peeked up at his face.

Romo felt a strange twinge in the pit of his stomach, and worry niggled at him. His injuries had never caused that sort of sensation before. His conscious mind balked from the unformed suspicion, and pushed it deep, deep down before it rose to the surface.

# # #

_Author's Note:_ Well, I wanted this chapter to be the…romance chapter? The, 'look at everyone they're all happy, isn't it just lovely' chapter?

All the characters are pretty much happy and contented for once, and everyone has someone. Saul and Ellen, Kari Eldon and Doc Cottle (yay! Doc Cottle's gettin' some!), Caprica and Gaius and the baby (awww), Romo and Manya Yelizarov…

I hope the happiness wasn't too boring for y'all – that's what I've worried about most with this whole episode – that the tone is too, well, dry? Boring? Undramatic?

But I felt it's important to have an episode exploring Landfall in general – the political set up, some original characters, casual interactions between people that don't have the threat of death and high drama hanging over them so much… Character development, exploring motives, relationships, all that jazz.

This chapter in particular was slower paced – don't worry, there will of course be a sprinkling of drama, angst and all sorts later on in the episode.

So, please leave a comment if you're enjoying everything so far – or even if you aren't. Let me know what you like about it, so I can hopefully do that more, or what you don't like, so I can hopefully include less of it in the future :)

Next chapter should be up _Monday_.


	3. Human Nature - Two pm

_Author's Notes:_ A marginally early update, just because I love you guys :) What I actually do, is try (operative word being _try_) to write a whole episode ahead, to give myself some cushioning in case RL sends me on my arse (happens a lot), or a chapter just won't let itself be written (also happens a lot). But I'm all up to date with my staying ahead, so here's a chapter!

A huge thank you to everyone who reads and a super-duper thank you to those who read and _review_!

This chapter was one of my favourites in this episode to write – it flowed easily, and I had a lot of fun writing it – I hope you have as much fun reading it.

_Enjoy!_

# # #

"Starbuck." Joe's greeting was not over-friendly, a scowl etched on his face.

Fair enough, Starbuck shrugged to herself. He had no reason to like her at the moment – last time she had come in here several nights ago she'd gotten in a brawl with a couple of civilians and wrecked a good portion of furniture. Part of the reason she had come into Landfall today was to make payment for debts she owed the bar owner – not that she had told Lee she owed Joe. He would have given her that sadly disapproving look and sighed – frak she hated the way he did that. Made her feel so godsdamned guilty.

Starbuck dumped the large leather-wrapped bundle she was cradling onto the bar between her and Joe.

"There you go. What I owe you."

Joe undid the leather ties and examined the goods within briefly.

"Yup. That should wipe your debt." He agreed shortly, gathering up the things Starbuck had bartered for at Trader's and shoving them beneath the bar. She stood, waiting. He glanced back up as though surprised to see her still standing there.

"What?"

"I want a drink, Joe." She rolled her eyes, stuck a cigar in the corner of her mouth. What did he _think_ she was in a bar for?

"Oh…no, no, no." Joe shook his head, holding up his hands and taking a step back.

"I'm through with having you drink in my establishment, Starbuck. No offence meant, but you need to take a break from the booze. It's not treating you well, and with the trouble you cause it ain't worth my serving you."

"Aw, come on, Joe. I paid you back for the damage. We're all square now. And I'm not looking for any trouble – just a quiet drink." Starbuck tried to look as innocent as possible, but Joe wasn't buying it.

"_Sure_ you are, Starbuck." He rolled his eyes.

"For fraks sake, Joe, I swear, I won't cause any trouble. I just want a drink. I can pay – you know I'm good for it."

She didn't want to go back to the cabin in the woods, where Lee waited for her, eyes full of longing and concern. She wanted a reason to stay away and just…forget everything for a little while. And if she couldn't go to Joe's there was nowhere else in town; his was the only bar in Landfall. She wondered whether the LPOs might have some booze over in the patrol room. She could always go spend the afternoon there, playing cards and shooting the shit. It didn't really appeal, though. She didn't feel like being around the LPOs, in that atmosphere of rough, teasing camaraderie.

"I can't change your mind, Joe?"

Joe just stared at her stonily, hands braced on the bar top, expression unmoving. Starbuck shrugged. Frak this sucked.

"Right then. I'll see you 'round."

She was weaving her way through the tables that crowded the room when someone called her name, and she stopped in her tracks.

"Starbuck! Hey, _Starbuck_!"

She looked around the smoky gloom of the place, gnawing absentmindedly on the end of her cigar; Louis Hoshi was waving at her from a corner, a bottle in his hand. She sauntered over, curious. She hadn't seen Hoshi since the night he'd apparently helped her home from the bar, dead drunk. And she didn't _remember_ seeing him since she half beaten the shit out of him a while before that.

And now here he was, waving her over and grinning lopsidedly at her.

"Lieutenant." She greeted him with a nod.

"Louis."

"Hoshi." She countered and he kept grinning at her disconcertingly, shrugged.

"Hoshi works for me. Want to have a seat?"

"I better not. Joe's banned me. Don't want to get you barred too. Fraternising with the enemy, you know."

There was a short and awkward silence, Starbuck shifting her unlit cigar around in her mouth and furrowing her brow, trying to think of a way to break the silence. No avenues of conversation occurred to her. Joe was staring at her warningly from behind the bar as he dried a batch of glasses.

There was only one thing she could say – the unavoidable, and _damn_ she didn't want to.

"Um. Thanks – for getting me home safe the other night. Joe said…" Starbuck finally began haltingly and Hoshi shook his head,

"It's fine. No problem."

"I'm sorry you had to…"

"Hey, I get it. You don't have to explain."

"Yeah. Well. Thanks, anyway." And Starbuck swung around and left, cheeks flaming an embarrassed red.

It was, as always, a clear hot day outside, and the dust billowed up around Starbuck's feet as she scuffed along the road, head down and cigar sticking forlornly out the corner of her mouth. She supposed she'd head over to the patrol room – see if they had any liquor squirreled away, despite Tigh's orders against it. It wasn't likely, but a girl could hope.

A handful of people were on the streets, moving purposefully for the most part – probably heading back out to the fields after having their lunch, or going out to set or check traps, or gather wild growing fruits and roots. A cluster of men and women jogged past with bows and spears in hand, several of them also armed with rifles; a hunting party heading out onto the plains. Starbuck nodded a hello as she lit her cigar at last, puffing on it contemplatively.

"Starbuck! Hey, wait up!" She recognised the voice immediately – it was Hoshi. He was hurrying down the road from Joe's towards her, a large jug of liquor in each hand. Starbuck smirked and swaggered around to face Hoshi, lifting a hand in acknowledgement of him.

"Still wanting a drink?"

The day suddenly seemed a hell of a lot brighter.

"You know me, Hoshi. I never turn down a drink." Starbuck couldn't wipe the pleased grin off her face as Hoshi reached her; with what looked like classic vile rotgut in the three-litre jugs. He handed her one of them with a small smile of his own, refusing offers of payment.

"Thanks, Hoshi." She pulled out the cork in the top and took a whiff.

"_Gods_! What in the frak _is_ that?"

"Joe's finest ethanol." Hoshi joked,

"Sorry, I can't afford anything better."

"No, no. It's great, Hoshi. Seriously, I owe you one. Cheers." Starbuck lifted the jug up and awkwardly Hoshi clanked his jug against hers, and she took a swig, cigar hooked in the crook of her little finger while she drank. Hoshi observed her reaction with nervous humour.

"Frak!" It was like fire burning its way into the pit of her stomach and she gasped for breath, fanning her mouth.

"Gods – is it just me or is Joe's brewing getting worse?" She didn't wait for an answer,

"Either way, it's booze, and it's drinkable. Barely." She paused, hummed under her breath.

"Hey. You want to go find some shade, Hoshi? Pass the time and drink some?" Starbuck liked Hoshi. He was a good guy – he'd helped her out twice now for no reward. And he seemed kind of lonely. Besides, she was in no rush to go back to her and Lee's house and have him frown at her worriedly while she drank herself to the bottom of the bottle.

"I'm not the best company lately – you don't have to drink with me just because I bought the stuff. If you want to go…whatever, then that's fine, Starbuck. Honestly." He was hesitant and unsure, fidgeting on his feet and looking as though he wanted to apologise for his own existence.

"Yeah, well I'm not exactly fine company at the moment either. We can be miserable frakkers together. Come on, Hoshi," She clapped Hoshi on the back hard enough to make him splutter on a mouthful of rotgut, puffed at her cigar and grinned widely,

"Let's go get frakked. It'll be fun."

"Um… Sounds like a plan. I guess."

# # #

The long break for lunch seemed to have calmed the Councillors nerves, and for once the meeting was going smoothly. It helped that they were going over the more minor things on the agenda – the basic management of the settlements. Things like sewerage disposal arrangements, water treatment – non-existent as of yet, but people were working on chemical purifiers – schools, and so on. Joseph Ababa was the Councillor who was most invested in education, having been a principal in his past life before the attack on the colonies, and had raised concerns about the low attendance of children at the local school. A motion had been unanimously passed to make it legally required for all children under the age of twelve to attend some variety of school, whether it be a formal school, or just a basic bit of book-learning such as was the only thing available in Wideskies. Kari Eldon had requested that the medical equipment that remained on the Galactica be retrieved when they sent a raptor up to sort out matériels for power generation, and that too had passed without issue.

Manya Yelizarov had the uneasy feeling that the peace and cooperation would not last much longer. The personalities in the room were a varied bunch, and so far they had never achieved a meeting that was not sprinkled liberally with squabbling. Manya tried her best to sooth frayed tempers and mediate communications, but was mostly unsuccessful. It was one thing to understand how people worked and to know little techniques that helped smooth social interactions, but this particular group of people were too set at odds for anything less than full intensive group therapy plus team-building exercises to work. And that was not something that was going to happen, _ever_.

She sighed and sat quietly listening to the discussions; she didn't often have anything to add. Manya Yelizarov was not a politician, she was a lecturer and an academic, and because of her lack of background in politics, and her equal lack of the required ruthlessness and pushy nature, she mostly faded into the background. She was only on the Council because Romo had skilfully charmed her into both the position, and his bed – and then rigged the election to ensure her place.

Romo Lampkin himself was rather a mystery. He was motivated by the challenge rather than the lure of power; more interested in whether and how he could manage to achieve his goal than in actually achieving the goal itself most of the time. He enjoyed being President – no matter how much he denied it, the fact was plain as day to Manya. But what he enjoyed was not the power in and of itself, but the ability to use that power to do what he felt was in the best interests of the people. He also claimed to be unhindered by ethics, but he clearly had a very strong personal code of morality that he followed. Manya found him difficult to read clearly – she suspected that her personal involvement clouded her judgement where Romo was concerned.

She watched him surreptitiously at his place opposite the long table from her, fiddling with his dark glasses and eying the Councillors with a calm, blank expression. Manya's tongue flicked over her lips and she couldn't suppress a smile. He was very handsome; or at least, she thought so. She enjoyed what they had at the moment, but her feelings on the matter were more than a little tangled. Before the attack on the Colonies – several years before, in fact – she had been introduced to Romo and his wife, Faye, at a party. She and Romo had gotten along well. Well enough in fact, that they had engaged in a brief affair. Manya regretted that, and sometimes she wondered if it was partly why he kept her at a slight distance. She knew he struggled with his feelings of guilt regarding the deaths of his wife and daughters, although he had never showed any sign of wanting to talk about it.

Manya had seen a photo of his two girls – wallet-sized and lined where it had been folded and crumpled, it lay tucked in a drawer beside his bed. Yes, she had been snooping – she knew he must have poked through her belongings as well, so she didn't feel guilty about the intrusion. They had been pretty little things, both with more than a little of their father in their looks, and bright, cheerful faces. He must miss them awfully. Manya did not know what that felt like; she had been single at the time of the Fall, and was estranged from most of her family, had few close friends, and no real ties that bound her. She had grieved, but not with the same intensity as Romo must have, and still did.

She liked him a great deal. More than she wanted to.

Romo smiled wryly down the table at her and Manya returned the look, a tiny sensation of warmth blooming within her. Yes, she liked him a great deal.

She didn't think Romo realised just how much though, and that was good – she did not want him to feel pressured into giving her more commitment than he wished to just because he felt pressured, or worse, sorry for Manya. The animated conversations went on around the table, and she listened just enough to make a few relevant but neutral comments, and vote as appropriate.

She had never been this distracted by Romo at a meeting before, but she couldn't seem to pull her eyes off him, or her mind away from remembrances of their time in bed over the midday break. Their relationship had always been one of simple mutual respect and enjoyment, with none of those complicating tangles of romantic _feelings_.

And then Romo had gone and gotten himself stabbed.

And in the blink of an eye, Manya had realised just how much he meant to her – how much it would hurt her to lose him. A revelation like that under such circumstances was quite common, she knew – trauma often had a way of bringing suppressed or ignored feelings up to the surface of the mind. But by the gods, she did not expect it when it happened to her. It was easy to intellectually know everything you wanted to about psychology and such, and quite another thing to apply it successfully to yourself.

It frightened her, to have her romantic happiness in the hands of a man who was still bitter and grieving, who couldn't express his feelings to another human, who manipulated people for seemingly just the fun of it.

And whom she _still_ hadn't been able to break of his kleptomaniac tendencies.

Gods, that brought back the still infuriating memory how he had convinced her to become a Councillor. Manya had spent _days_ searching for her hairbrush, with no luck. With no others at Trader's, and no one she was close enough to at the time to ask to borrow one, she had gone without, miserably. It had been Romo Lampkin, the _bastard_ – he had pilfered her hairbrush, and then two days later sent a runner to ask her to come and see him. Frustrated and hair a tangled mess all pulled back into an untidy mass, she had done so, and Romo had proceeded to tease her, flatter her, hand over the hairbrush, very nearly kiss her, and convince her to become a Councillor all within the space of twenty minutes. She had no idea how he had done it.

But it was part of why she…cared…so much about him.

She gnawed on her lip and stared at Romo with narrowed dark eyes, as though trying to see through his skull and into his scheming mind. What exactly was he playing at with this dinner tonight? Was he trying to achieve something, or just having fun manipulating people? Was he including her in the people to be manipulated, or was she to be an observer or play a role of some sort? Manya had no idea, and she most emphatically did not like not knowing.

Romo caught her watching again, and grinned at her like an innocent little boy, and Manya swore inwardly as her heart did a little flip flop in her chest. Damn him.

# # #

Lee looked around the clearing outside communal meeting cabin at the cluster of people gathered. All the hardcore members of the faction that had been under Paulla's sway were there; about thirty or so, their eyes on Lee's face. They looked a lot less fervent and sure of themselves now – uneasy and apprehensive, glancing to Paulla as though for confirmation of Lee's new edict. No more violence, no more trouble making – no following anyone's orders but his. They needed to repair their image in the eyes of the colonists that lived in Landfall, and show that what had happened was an aberration, an individual acting alone, and not indicative of what their movement was about. A few looked convinced by Lee's argument, but the others…well, they were all looking to Paulla for guidance.

She stood near the back of the group of people. Her face was haggard and her stance cowed, eyes on the ground and her lips pursed together. She conveyed a mixture of resentment and fear, and Lee felt a stab of guilt seeing what he had done to her.

If he could take it back he…would he? Lee didn't know. He felt disgusted with himself for losing his temper to that extent, for taking his anger out on her, but well…it had achieved what he wanted. Gods. Even just _thinking_ that made him feel filthy, tainted. What he had done to Paulla had been wrong, unquestionably. Lee was not the sort of man to whom the end justified the means, and he didn't want to _become_ that man either. He wished he could apologise to her, but he couldn't afford to show that kind of weakness. Paulla was cowed for now, but only because she was afraid of him – not because she respected him. Lee's only choice if he wanted to remain head of the movement was to go along with the…the…he couldn't fool himself – the _assault_ he had perpetrated. Frak, but it needled at him, twisted up his insides into guilty knots.

"Well? Are we all in agreement?" Lee asked sharply, breaking the short silence, surveying the people around him with an emotionless face. There were mutterings and shuffling from the group and confusion on people's faces, as Paulla remained silent with no hint of her agreement or disagreement visible. Lee cursed himself silently. He didn't want to do this, he shouldn't do this – it was wrong, it was unfair. It was cruel, and Paulla didn't deserve even the tiniest amount of cruelty.

"Paulla." He spoke her name and she reluctantly looked up at him, wounded and hateful.

"You agree with me, don't you?" Lee weighted his words and Paulla flinched, hand unconsciously cupping her throat, any marks covered by a light scarf. Lee hated himself more than a little bit at that moment.

"Um…"

"There will be no more acts of violence, will there, Paulla?" He queried, tone hard, and Paulla clenched her jaw, refusing to speak. They locked gazes for long seconds and then Lee smiled, flexed his fingers and Paulla saw the movement and the humourless smile and with a gasp dropped her eyes, shoulders hunching up. He _really_ hated himself.

"Will there?"

"No, of course. I agree, Lee." She formed a rictus of a smile,

"You've convinced me." The embittered words cut through him and it was his turn to flinch.

"Good." There was no trace of the turmoil he was consumed by in Lee's voice.

"That's good. We're all in agreement, then?"

The gathered people lost their looks of confusion, and gradually affirmed their agreement with nods or words. Lee nodded briskly and stepped off the low tree stump he had been standing on and the gathered people took it as a signal to disperse, slowly disbanding and heading back to their business. Paulla stood for a time without moving, and Lee kept an eye on her as he exchanged a few words with a Two, one of the ones who had taken their own name – Leonidas – and who seemed to have been genuinely convinced by Lee's little speech. Leonidas nodded a farewell to Lee and left, and Lee saw Paulla begin to move towards him.

Frak.

He couldn't face her, not now, after just reminding her of the power he currently held over her. He knew it was necessary to keep her in check – people's lives were at stake. If she managed to gain her influence back she would have more assassination attempts, more discord and hurt, and less chance that the movement would ever succeed. But it felt like a stain etched into his mind, tainting him intrinsically. Lee felt sick as he hurried away from her before she could reach him, leaving on off the beaten pathways and losing himself in the underbrush of the forest as quickly as he could. Lee didn't relax for a good five minutes, until he could convince himself she wasn't creeping up behind him, face accusing and steeped in fearful hate.

Lee slowed his pace and headed in the direction of his and Kara's cabin, slogging through the tangle of low bushes and vines that twined between tree trunks and that made every step he took an effort. He told himself over and over that what he was doing was for the best. He had been left with no choice. He hadn't purposefully and in cold-blood assaulted Paulla, but seeing as he had, well – it was a shame to let that hold over her go to waste. If Lee had to remind Paulla that he had hurt her once and could – would – do it again if she made him… It was a price he would have to pay.

But he didn't have to be godsdamned happy about it.

# # #

Starbuck giggled and ducked, Hoshi's fist just missing her.

"Come on, can't you do better than that! Come on sissy-boy, let's do it!" She taunted, straightening up and dancing on the spot, fists up and ready. Hoshi swore at her.

"Frak you! I am going to frakking beat the shit out of you, Starbuck. You'll see."

She laughed at his earnest declaration, the determination on his face, a pure uncomplicated sound that dropped drunkenly from her lips, and tossed her hair back over her shoulder with a jerk of her head.

She shouldn't have done that.

"Ah, _motherfrakker_!" Starbuck stumbled back, a stinging throbbing pain exploding against her left cheekbone. Her hand came up to cover it instinctively and another blow hit her, smack in the mouth. _Frak_! She brought her fists up and lashed out half-blindly. Hoshi laughed at her, thin face transformed by the expression.

"You missed!" He mocked lightly and Starbuck compressed her lips together and focused, ignoring the locks of hair that felt across her face in a ragged veil. Distracting, but she could see through it, and she wasn't about to make the same mistake twice in a row. Starbuck hoicked and spat a large gobbet of blood and spit onto the dusty ground out behind the Council building.

"I'll get ya, just you wait and see." She told him, smirk playing around the edge of her lips as she circled Hoshi unsteadily. They were both a little wobbly on their feet – at least a litre of rotgut each would do that to you.

Starbuck was amazed that Hoshi could hold his booze so well. She would have thought he'd be keeling over on the ground vomiting his stomach lining up by now. He was showing hidden depths, and as Starbuck lashed out with a jab to Hoshi's jaw and _didn't_ miss, a part of her brain realised that she was having more fun than she'd had in a long time. She grinned and laughed, dancing back and shaking her arms, loosening up.

"Good one." Hoshi rubbed his jaw gingerly and hissed at the touch; Starbuck could see the red blossoming where she had struck him. Both of them were worse for wear right now. Starbuck's nose was bloodied, her teeth had cut her lip when Hoshi had smacked her in the mouth, and her cheek felt swollen and taut – and Hoshi looked how she felt. But godsdamn, it was _fun_.

"Thanks." It hurt a little to talk, and she blinked, held up a hand,

"Call it quits for now? My face hurts like a bitch."

"Sure."

Hoshi and Starbuck eased themselves achingly down with their backs against the Council building wall, asses in the dirt, the shade blessedly cool.

"Thanks." Hoshi said, taking a swig from his jug of rotgut. Starbuck gave him a questioning glance.

"For the lesson, I mean."

"It's fine. My pleasure. I haven't sparred with anyone like that in far too long." She took a swig from her own jug, shrugged lazily, tank top clad back soaking up the faint warmth of the buildings wall,

"Releases endorphins, adrenaline, all that junk. Gets the blood pumping. Lets you work out any messy feelings clogging up your head. 's good."

"I've never been much for fighting. Never been very good at it – I don't like hurting people."

"You seemed fine with hurting me, Lieutenant." Starbuck arched a mocking eyebrow, snorted a laugh into the mouth of her jug. Hoshi snorted himself, spraying a fine mist of liquor over the ground.

"I swear, that says nothing about how I feel about you as a person. I just…you like it. You like getting hit." He saw her expression and hurried to explain,

"Not in a – well, you know, I didn't mean – not in a kink – in a sexual way." He spluttered and stumbled over his words.

Starbuck clapped him on the shoulder.

"It's fine, Hoshi. I know what you mean. I just find it…freeing? All the stupid emotions, any problems…it's…"

"Cathartic?"

"Yeah. I guess so."

"You don't spar with Lee?" The question came from out of nowhere and totally threw Starbuck. She gave Hoshi the side-eye, lips wrapped around the neck of the jug and stalling for time as she took a long drink. Gods the stuff was strong.

"I don't." Was all she could think of to say, having racked her brain for a nicer way of putting Hoshi off the topic and failing to find one. And somehow Hoshi missed the cues that Starbuck was uncomfortable with the topic. Looking him up and down, she realised he was probably too frakked. She was struggling with the effects of the drink herself, now that they had sat down and relaxed.

"Must be nice, to have someone." Hoshi stared down at his jug, forlorn.

"It ain't all it's cracked up to be, trust me."

"But you love Lee, right? He's someone you care about. He's there at night to lie in bed with, in the morning to eat with. He's there for affection, for advice – for sex. And as long as he's there, you're not alone." Hoshi gave her a long serious look.

"Nothing's ever perfect, Starbuck. But just because something is hard, doesn't mean it doesn't have value."

Gods, this conversation had turned serious quickly. Hoshi really was a frakking melancholic drunk. Starbuck listened to what he was saying though, weighed up his words, looking for any kernels of wisdom in his drunken advice. And he made a good point.

"If I had…well…" Hoshi trailed off but Starbuck knew exactly what – who – he was thinking about.

"I'm sorry for what I said about Gaeta – Felix. He was a good guy, really." It wasn't much by way of sympathy, but it was all Starbuck could dredge up.

"Thanks."

There was a short silence that stretched out. The straggly tree nearby waved a little in the breeze, and the sounds of the kids at the school a few hundred metres away wafted on the wind. Starbuck swallowed hard.

Was Hoshi right? Could she and Lee really be okay if she just worked at it hard enough? Maybe that was her problem; she just wasn't trying enough, wasn't putting enough effort in. But should a relationship take that much work? _Was_ it worth it? She snuck a glance at Hoshi; legs stretched out in front of him, fingers playing with the mouth of his rotgut jug, eyes far away and miserable. He was thinking about Gaeta, she could see it clear as day. It was all so godsdamned confusing and depressing. Frak, look at the pair of them – miserable, sentimental idiots, moping about in their own metaphorical filth. Starbuck wasn't going to be like that, wasn't going to be that person – she refused to. This was supposed to be her fun, happy afternoon. Or as close as she got these days, anyway.

"Come on then." Starbuck scrambled to her feet, taking a last mouthful of liquor and setting it down by the wall. She motioned for Hoshi to get up,

"Another round?"

"I dunno…"

"C'mon. I'll beat the godsdamned misery outta ya."

"Alright. May as well, I guess."

Hoshi got to his feet reluctantly, but lifted his fists and nodded, and they began circling each other again. She clipped him on the jaw. He used the techniques Starbuck had helped him with earlier, and feinted then hit out hard.

Starbuck's cursing resounded in the air as she clutched at the side of her head,

"Aww, frak! Ah! Gods_damnit_, Hoshi, my frakking ear _again_?"

# # #

"Your government's in a precarious position, Mr President. If you happened to die…well, you've got no Vice-President. Maybe you should look to remedying that. Of course, it's not like you'd care about that predicament if you were dead, would you?" It was all spoken in a low, rather menacing voice as the Councillors exited the meeting in a rush, and Romo wasn't sure if Finn Jeffries was trying to be helpful, or threatening and failing at it. Jeffries pushed past him out into Landfall's streets, and Saul Tigh reached Romo's side.

"What was that about? He was getting pretty godsdamned close up and personal with you, huh? And angry personal at that. Trouble, Mister President?"

"I don't know... No, no – leave him. It's fine. But… I think I may need you to accompany me on a few errands."

"Ugh. Frakking errands." Tigh muttered furiously, following a step behind Romo, his one eye scanning the surroundings.

"Thinks I'm a godsdamned slave, frakking traipsing 'round the godsdamned countryside, wearing through my frakking boots."

Romo ignored him – didn't even notice Manya lifting her hand in farewell, so lost in his thoughts was he. If it had been meant as a threat – and it _was_ the sort of heavy-handed melodramatic thing that Finn Jeffries might do – it had been a complete and utter failure. Such a failure, that on a scale of one to ten, it would need to be rated in the negative digits. Because now Romo was fully aware of the flaw in his hierarchy of government that Jeffries had pointed out, and of course planned on remedying it immediately. It almost seemed like Jeffries had been trying to help, whilst appearing his typically abrasive and hostile self as far as those who couldn't make out his actual words could tell. If so, Romo was amazed at the intelligence Jeffries had hidden from the world up until this point in time. He honestly didn't think the man had the capacity for even such simple tactics.

Huh. But at this point the matter of Jeffries' intent was irrelevant. The important question was…

Who would make a good Vice-President?

# # #

_Long, Long, Author's Note:_

Right so… Chapter dissection!

We have a good amount of Starbuck in this chapter. I really like it when Starbuck is drinking (in case you haven't already noticed) and I also really like the dynamic of Hoshi and Starbuck interacting. I find it really easy to write them together while (I think) keeping them wonderfully in character, and they just lend themselves to such cute/funny/angst interactions. Them fighting, I adore. It just seems to fit. What do you think?

Starbuck has figured out what she wants, now – but what she really wants is Sam. She realises that that's just a fantasy though – and she definitely loves Lee an awful lot. So at the moment, Starbuck's trying to work through her feelings and sort them out, which isn't easy for her. She feels a lot of (unintended) pressure from Lee to be perfectly happy, and she just isn't in that place in her head yet. So…I don't think things are going to go smoothly for her any time soon. Poor Starbuck :( I am a mean puppetmaster.

We get Romo in this chapter, but mostly from Manya Yelizarov's point of view. I wanted to get a look at him from the outside, using someone who would know him better (or at least, have a different perspective on him) than anyone else in BSG – plus I wanted to explore his feelings surrounding his wife and children, and give him some romantic interaction. Thus, Manya Yelizarov. I tried to have her examine and ponder on Romo without it turning into some big info-dump or a dreadfully boring inner monologue, and I'm not sure how it worked. I wanted to give Romo a bit more fleshing out as a character – a bit more of a past, and I feel Manya is the perfect character to do that. Personally I like her as a character, and I feel she, and whatever she and Romo have, feels quite organic and not implausible or forced – but you'll have to comment and let me know if you agree or disagree!

Lee…oh, poor, poor, Lee. I read someone once describe Lee (lovingly) as an _angst-moppet_, and that description just tickled me pink. I loved it – it appealed to me so much. So Lee…well, he's going through some darkness.

An existential crisis – I mean, he's finding himself, trying to figure out who he wants to be. A lot of the series for Lee revolved around him breaking out of the mould that his father (pushed? encouraged?) him into. He was on a straight and narrow and easy path, and throughout the series he began to step outside of the box, and make decisions and take actions that weren't safe or approved of, but that were unknowns – was he doing the right thing or was he mistaken? So, I'm using that for Lee's storyline in this series.

He's going to go through some dark things, and self-doubt, moral grey areas etc, before he comes out the other side. It will be dramatic, angsty and hopefully a fun read.

A last note – any plot threads that I may seem to drop during an episode will most likely be picked back up at a later date in a later episode. I have plans, and something being mentioned or referred to etc and then just…_left_, will most likely come up again.

Oh, and did anyone pick up on the Whedon reference this chapter?

Plus – _Kari Eldon_ = _Hari Seldon_, _Terence Sheridan_ = _John Sheridan _(although the characters aren't at all similar), and _Joseph Ababa _is Shepard Derrial Book in my head, and _Dianna Eyrie_ makes me think of Deanna Troi.

Well, we have reached the end of both the chapter and the _enormously_ long A/N at last – you know what that means!

Please _review_, I will adore you for it :D


	4. Play the Game - Four pm

This chapter has been re-posted, as I needed to tweak the ending scene, to fit in with a rewrite of the next chapter, "Interactions Between Entities – Eight pm".

_Only the end scene has been altered, and the changes are important, so you may like to reread that last scene. _Interactions Between Entities _should be back up, all re-written, tomorrow (or tonight if I write like the Dickens)._

_My apologies for the annoyance, but I feel the rewrite is necessary for the quality of the story. Thanks to reviewer _Timbo_ for their advice!_

_Author's Note:_ Another chapter! Already? Wow, you ask, what's going on? Well, I wanted to put up a chapter purely so I could write an author's note explaining things regarding Starbuck and Lee/Sam, as I've had a few questions regarding it. These explanations/comments will be at the end of this chapter, and enormously long.

This chapter, btw, is _M-rated _for brief sexy times. Please excuse the probable abundance of typos, I have not read through it thoroughly in my haste to get it up to you guys (excuses, excuses). Anyway,

_Enjoy!_

# # #

"Honey I'm home!"

Lee looked up from the plants he was watering in their large garden plot, towards cliché words uttered in a bright and cheerful voice. He squinted, the sun in his eyes, and could just make out Kara's lopsided grin as she appeared at the edge of the forest, and Lee felt a surge of tension fall away. Her posture and tone were relaxed, happy – carrying no notes of resentments or bottled up unhappiness. She seemed carefree for the first time in a very long time.

"I see that." Lee answered lightly, splashing the rest of the water over the thirsty plants and straightening up, walking to meet Kara, bucket swinging easily from his hand. He was glad she was back. After the argument this morning he had been worried that she was going to stay away for the night; make him worry while she hid and sulked. Lee wondered if things were getting better between them – easier – and a smile spread slowly over his face. And then he got close enough to see her without squinting into the lowering sun and his stomach sank and the weight returned to his shoulders.

What the frak had she done now?

Kara's face was a bruised and bloodied mess; her left eye blackened, her nose crusted beneath with dried blood, and bruises splotching over her skin. She was still grinning despite a puffy top lip – she reached out her arms toward Lee, and saw his hesitation to embrace her.

"What?" Her brow furrowed and she tipped her head to the side, arms falling back down limply.

"Your face, Kara. What in the hell…?" Lee shook his head, disappointed.

Lee had thought that Kara had stopped going down to Joe's and provoking fights. In the immediate aftermath of Boxey's death it had been common – he hadn't been there of course, with her refusing to see him, but he'd heard about it. But then they decided to try and give their relationship another chance, and Lee had thought she was starting to get back to some semblance of normal – to adjust to the way things were now. Gods, she made things so difficult for him. For them. How were they supposed to have a relationship when she kept running off and doing stupid shit like getting pissed and brawling? Lee shook his head again, feeling just so godsdamned tired of it all, and Kara scowled at him.

"It's not what you think, Lee."

"Well what is it then? You walked into a door – or a tree? Fell down some stairs?" His voice dripped sarcasm, and she flattened her mouth out and gave him a _look_.

"No, I didn't. Actually."

"Well then _what_?"

Kara folded her arms across her chest and eyed Lee angrily. He wondered how the two of them went from happy to furious with each other so quickly. She just got back, and already they were ripping at each other. It was actually somewhat of a relief, after the tense farce of domesticity they had been trying to keep intact the past week.

"What?" He asked her again, dropping the bucket to the grass and eying Kara straight back, wondering what her excuse was going to be this time. She pursed her lips, winced, and dabbed at the swollen top one.

"I met up with Hoshi down at Joe's. We had a few drinks, and we sparred a bit."

"_Sparred_? A _bit_?" Lee shook his head again, indicating Kara's wounds with a flick of his fingers.

"You call that sparring? That's not sparring, that's beating the shit out of each other." And what the frak did Louis Hoshi look like if Kara looked this battered? And what was Hoshi doing sparring with Kara? Lee wouldn't have thought he would be a fighter.

"It was fun, okay Lee? It was fun. I had a good time. I enjoyed myself, and so did Hoshi. So what the frak is your problem?" Kara shot back and Lee paused in his mental tirade, stopping himself before he vocalised what he was thinking – namely that she was stupid, irresponsible and had major anger management issues. Kara had looked happy, before Lee had ruined it by being annoyed that she was injured. She had looked happy and carefree. And Lee had gone ahead and killed that feeling because he didn't approve of her getting into fights. And then it turned out that she had a valid reason for her wounds. Damn. He suddenly felt like an asshole.

"I'm sorry." Lee stepped forward so they were scant inches apart and touched beneath her eye gently, tracing the bruised swelling.

"I just thought…"

"That I'm a violent, irresponsible idiot?"

"Close." He admitted with a shrug and rueful tilt to his mouth.

"You need to learn to trust me, Lee."

She spoke softly, eyes brimming with sincerity, and Lee winced and looked down at his feet. It was hard. It was hard to trust someone who was so unreliable, who seemed distant so often, who refused to make official commitments, who disappeared in times of stress instead of turning to him for support. How could he trust someone he couldn't depend on? But there was no way he could tell Kara that.

"I'm trying." He said instead.

"It's…hard."

She smiled sadly and shrugged one shoulder just barely,

"I get that. I do. But…"

"Yeah, I know." Lee ran his thumb over the bruises that marked Kara's face, sympathy pains ghostly under his skin. He kissed her, lips barely, softly, meeting. Kara's lips were dry, the swollen top lip fiery hot against his, and he was afraid of hurting her, but she kissed him back; pressing her mouth firmly into the kiss and parting her lips, tongue just sweeping over his bottom lip. Lee's spine shivered deliciously and he wrapped his arms around her waist, crushing her closer. She melted into his arms, tasting like a distillery and the metallic tang of blood, and smelling like sweat and booze. And Lee didn't care – Kara was intoxicating. So frakking hot; she turned him on so godsdamned much, no matter what she smelt like or tasted like, and the mere fact that another argument had been averted made him feel like celebrating.

Made him feel like frakking her.

Kara was breathing quick and shallow as Lee's hands crept up under her tank top and cupped her breasts, thumbs brushing over her nipples teasingly. Her pelvis thrust forward to grind against the growing bulge in his pants and he grinned into their kiss, tweaking her nipples, rewarded by a low mewl.

"You always did get hot after a good fight." He broke away from the kiss and mocked her gently, hands shifting from her breasts to her ass, sneaking under her pants to bare, smooth flesh.

"What can I say? I'm simple girl with simple needs, I guess." She smirked at him as her hands did their own delving, making Lee gasp and bite back a moan. Frak her fingers felt good – cool and smooth, moving rhythmically…his mind trailed away dumbly for a moment. She pulled her hands out and jumped back a step, leaving Lee bereft and heart hammering in his chest, pants tenting uncomfortably. He rearranged himself, frowning a little at Kara.

"But…?"

She flashed a grin,

"Come and get it if you want it." And backed away from him, battered face split by her beaming smirk. Lee mirrored her expression, and took several steps toward her.

"I will then."

It took him nearly ten minutes to grab and subdue her, both of them panting and giggling and Lee's erection distractingly uncomfortable. Lee only succeeded that quickly because Kara almost kneed him accidentally in the crotch and he let her think she had and crumpled to the ground, moaning pitifully. When she had knelt over him, worried and apologetic, Lee had used the opportunity to pin her, ripping her boots off and going after her one weakness – her ticklish bare feet.

It was nice, laughing and play fighting, a constant buzz of desire humming just beneath the surface.

Laughter that naturally shifted toward outright lust, and led to clothes being shed in the long grass under the sun, grass tips tickling and itching in sensitive places, contrasting with the wet warmth of bodies melding and interlocking. Kara was hot and her skin flushed pink, her eyes shut as she lay back on the ground with her face upturned to the sun, tongue flicking over her lips as she breathed jagged and heavy and her fingers clutched at Lee's body. He took it torturously slow and gentle, playing and exploring, fingers and mouth taking pleasure in pleasing her. It was the first time in what seemed like forever – Lee felt like he should try and make it a momentous occasion. Give Kara something to remember next time she started pulling away from him emotionally with her distant, angry act.

"Oh gods…" Her fingers curled into his hair and tugged as her body convulsed, sending sharp little stings of pain through Lee's scalp.

"Oh gods…Lee…" He heard Kara mumble his name desperately and didn't mind the pain. She convulsed again a few moments later and flinched and twitched as his fingers brushed teasingly over her slick sensitised flesh, still quivering under his touch.

"Enough, Lee." She gasped.

"No more." It was a breathy plea as she tried to drag him up, thighs falling apart as she tugged at him,

"Please, now. Please!"

He wanted… To be honest, Lee would rather have Kara's mouth first, but he let that idea go for now – maybe later – and crawled up her body, obeying her wishes and sinking into her. Hot and wet and perfect. Gods, she was heavenly. His eyes squeezed shut as he fell into a comfortable rhythm, and a gasp escaped his lips, hips rising and falling, all to the tune of Kara's unfettered gasps and moans of pleasure, her whispered urgings of 'more' and 'oh my gods, yes, Lee…oh my gods right _there_'. The sun was hot on his naked back, and their skin was growing slick with perspiration where they were pressed together, and her short finger nails clawed at his shoulder blades, and gods, it was _good_. The best in such a long time, maybe even ever. Not the sex itself – that was just ordinary, nothing special – but Lee felt connected to Kara, felt like she was present, in the moment, relaxed and enjoying it. So often she seemed…elsewhere while they were frakking, seemed as though she was just going through the motions. Like it was purely physical. But today Kara lay beneath him with her legs pinned around his hips and her back arched with pleasure, murmuring Lee's name like he was the only man on earth.

They bathed together afterwards, making lazy small talk punctuated by long, easy silences. The tension from earlier had dissipated, and Lee couldn't keep the smile off his face. He was perfectly contented, and Kara seemed equally happy, if a little distracted now. The icy cold of the stream was a shock after the warmth of her body; Lee's genitals tried to crawl back up into his body and hide, and Kara's nipples stood out hard and crinkled and tempting. Lee restrained himself though, washing her face gently to get rid of any lingering traces of blood with the balled up corner of his singlet.

"Don't forget we're going out for dinner tonight."

Lee _had_ forgotten.

"Where?" He asked confusedly and Starbuck dropped her eyes nervously from his, posture turning defensive, tucking her hands into her armpits so her naked breasts were squashed beneath her forearms.

"Um…the President's."

"The _President's_?" Lee was incredulous. Why the frak would Romo Lampkin want him to go to dinner? Well, actually, no – Lee _could_ see Romo inviting him to dinner for some convoluted scheming reason. But why in the hell would Kara think it was a good idea to say yes?

"Why?" He asked sharply.

"I don't know. He said something about wanting to meet with you to promote good relations and communication – to show there were no hard feelings, and he didn't hold you responsible for the…um, attack." Kara's voice dropped at the end – she still tried to avoid referencing the afternoon in which she had killed Boxey, and fair enough too. Lee tried to look sympathetic and rubbed her arm comfortingly.

"But it's Romo. His real reasons could be anything at all, but it makes the most sense that he really is trying to make some sort of personal connection with you. Ease tension between the two factions, I guess." Kara shrugged as she splashed out of the stream and rubbed herself dry with a holey old towel. Lee looked thoughtful for a moment, then tipped a bucket of freezing water over his head and spluttered with shock, scrubbing his hair.

"Well, I suppose I can't _not_ go. That would look bad. Gods, I hate being trapped into things like this."

"Romo Lampkin isn't a bad man, Lee. I thought you liked him, anyway?" Kara finished scrambling into her clothes and stood leaning casually against a tree on the bank, arms crossed and casual, wet hair straggling over her shoulders. Lee shrugged, wading out of the water himself and rubbing a towel over his hair. His words were muffled and indistinct from beneath the towel.

"I do. I mean, in the past before we came to Earth he was…" Lee trailed off, thinking about the ways in which Romo and Lee had affected each other's destinies. Like it or not, Lee had Romo to thank for the new path in life he was feeling his way blindly down, and Romo owed his purpose in life and position as President to Lee Adama. They were linked.

"It's awkward though. Godsdamned awkward. You understand that, right?"

Kara looked sympathetic and shrugged, looking breathtaking even with the mottled discolorations that patterned her face in blues and purples. Lee dressed, snatching glances at her, slim and wiry, her eyes on his body, a faint smirk curling her full and battered lips.

"So just us and him, then? At his place?"

Kara looked uncomfortable.

"Kara?" Lee's voice warningly demanded further explanation for her hesitation and she bit her lips gingerly.

"Um…"  
"Who else is coming, Kara?"

Her voice was uncharacteristically small and meek as she answered,

"The Tighs?"

"The Tighs?! And you didn't think you should tell me that?! Oh my frakking _gods_, Kara! Saul and _Ellen_?" Visions of the first dinner Lee had _enjoyed _– hah – with the Tighs went flashing through his head like a film reel of nightmares. Gods, not Ellen Tigh. Lee's soul shrank with terror and embarrassment. Not to mention the outright dislike between Lee and Saul. The last time Lee had seen Saul the man had been beating Lee's face in for fraks sake.

Holy frakking Aphrodite. This was going to be hell tonight.

Frakking Romo Lampkin.

# # #

Vultures circled far off in the distance, the dead or dying animal they spun above hidden from view by the low, rolling hillocks that dotted the plains. The sky they rode was blue and drifted with large cirrocumulus clouds like fish scales. From the look of them, rain was likely coming overnight – well, the crops could do with a good watering. Gaius' irrigation system wasn't enough to keep the earth as moist as the plants needed in this dry late summer weather. He rocked Eupheme on the porch, the baby sleeping peacefully and making little sucking motions with her rosebud mouth. Caprica was sleeping inside, and Tycho and Selah were visible as small figures out in the fields, working steadily. They were good people, and since Pheme had arrived they had insisted Gaius spend more time at the house with Caprica; saying a new mother needed the support of her partner. Gaius felt disconcertingly bad about not being out there helping. Not so long ago he would have thought it only his right to not be involved in dirty manual labour, but now…now he felt guilty that Tycho and Selah were slaving away while Gaius relaxed and minded the baby.

Gaius dropped his eyes to Pheme – getting fat now, a far cry from the skinny wee things she had been at birth. Her little cheeks were plump and round, and her joints all had dimples in her fat flesh – she was thriving. Not that Gaius and Caprica stopped worrying about her – any little snuffle, any strange noise or too rosy cheeks and a long debate ensued over whether they should go in to Landfall to the hospital or not. Usually they consulted with Selah, who had gotten experience with his small nieces and nephews – before the Fall, they were all gone now, dead in the nuclear attacks – and he convinced them Pheme was fine, laughing at them with his eyes even as he reassured them.

"Good little baby." Gaius cooed softly and brushed a fingertip over Pheme's smooth forehead. Gods but she was perfectly formed – beautiful. Although he suspected cognitive bias might be at work there, and that no doubt Pheme was much like any other baby. But although he thought that intellectually, when he looked at his daughter all he could see was the most perfect little being in the universe.

"Perfect. Tiny little creature, got your daddy–" He paused and looked up as he heard Tycho yell out – not an alert to danger, but to get Gaius' attention. He squinted over the fields and saw several figures approaching, and waved at Tycho to let the man know that Gaius had seen the unknown visitors.

"Now who could they be, hmm, Pheme?" He mused quietly to her – after finally losing the habit of talking to Head Caprica, now Gaius had picked up the habit again, talking to his child. She didn't understand, but when she was awake she looked up at him with big dark blue eyes and just…listened. It was soothing, somehow.

He didn't bother getting up and walking to meet the visitors – he wasn't about to risk waking the baby. Instead Gaius kept rocking gently, alternating between watching the skies, Pheme and the approaching figures.

The three men – for they were male – came within recognizable distance at last, and Gaius frowned, pulse picking up the tiniest bit and pausing in his gentle rocking. Pheme stirred in his arms and he resumed his steady back and forth motion. What did the President want with Gaius? Romo Lampkin reached the porch and stood at the bottom of the two steps, Saul Tigh and an ex-viper pilot – Narcho? – flanking him.

"Mr Baltar." Romo Lampkin was clad in a stone-blue business shirt that was dusty and a little worse for wear after the long walk from Landfall, and grey suit pants – ubiquitous glasses shading his eyes from the sun and Gaius' perusal.

Gaius frowned, hair falling into one eye,

"Mr President, please. You'll wake the baby." He felt like he was at a disadvantage, snugged in a rocking chair with a thin cotton swaddled bundle in his arms and a patch of milky drool courtesy of Pheme on his shirt. He did not feel like an intelligent, deservedly arrogant scientist. No, Gaius instead felt tired, dishevelled, and irritated by the intrusion into his life. He tried to conceal it by being quietly cutting. Romo Lampkin merely smiled apologetically and made a slight bow,

"Of course, Mr Baltar. My apologies." He pulled out a cigarette and lit up, thoughtful enough to move so the smoke didn't blow toward Pheme and Gaius.

"And how is fatherhood suiting you?" There was a hint of strain to the President's voice as he asked the question and Gaius wondered why. Probably the man had lost children in the Fall – most people had, of course. Gods, he didn't like thinking about that, not with Pheme tucked up in his arms. So fragile. So vulnerable.

"Better than I would have expected, Mr President. But I somehow doubt you have come all this way to inquire about my findings on being a parent."

Lampkin chewed on his lip, dragged on his cigarette.

"Mm. Can't put anything past you, can I?"

"Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit." Gaius retorted, toeing the line between being hostile and a friendly joke.

"Is that why you always indulged in it so frequently, Mr Baltar?" Romo inquired mildly, humour on his face. Gaius inclined his head,

"Touché, Mr President." He paused a beat, shifted Pheme in his arms,

"Now. Why did you come all this way to see me?"

Romo Lampkin dropped his cigarette and ground it into the dirt with his shoe,

"You have been in varying positions of power since the Cylon attack on the Colonies, have you not? You have been a valued scientist, the Vice-President, the President – and let's not go there, shall we? – a cult leader and man of god, and, most dear to my heart; a desperate and hopeless prisoner whom required my skills as a lawyer to avoid execution as a traitor."

Gaius swallowed hard, jaw clenching. The bastard. What was he playing at?

"That was all a very long time ago. I am but a simple farmer now – a grower of crops and a family man." Gaius put on his best serene voice, and Romo smirked.

"Of _course_ you are."

"No, really – I am." He was feeling increasingly nervous and Pheme squirmed in his arms as though she sensed her father's anxiety, not quite awake but nearing it.

"I mean it. I'm just a farmer, Mr President. All those other things…they don't matter any more to me – except of course in that there are things I…regret very deeply." It was hard to admit that with Saul Tigh standing there glaring at Gaius one-eyed. Gods. He jounced Pheme gently in his arms and tried to rock steadily again, muscles quivering.

"There's no need to panic, Gaius. I haven't come here to dredge up past…indiscretions and mistakes. I have come here to make a request of you."

The godsdamned bastard. Lampkin was just trying to push Gaius off balance – soften him up before he asked him for a favour, asked him to make some kind of sacrifice. Without thinking about why, Gaius clutched Pheme a little closer.

"Yes? And that request would be…?" His voice was sharp and he was pleased that he didn't stammer – much.

The President of the Colonists smiled dryly at Gaius, and Gaius wished he could see the man's eyes.

"You have experience with power – at the very least you know what mistakes not to make. You had, and may still have, a great deal of influence over the people, including and especially the most fervent members of Lee Adama's faction – your old cult followers. You have a great many useful qualities, and I tend to believe you when you say you are not the same man you were before arrival on Earth."

What was Lampkin getting at? Gaius waited with bated breath, mind whirring frantically.

"I would like you to take on the position as my Vice-President." Romo Lampkin concluded and Gaius audibly choked.

It took a moment for his racing thoughts to process what the President had just told him. First came, _what the frak?_ then, _me? Why me? Does he not remember what happened the last time I was in power?_ and finally, the oddest realisation, that Gaius _didn't want_ the position. He actually didn't want to be second in line to be President of the Colony. It was such a strange and alien thought for him, Gaius Baltar, to be having, that it made his mind go utterly blank, sitting there frozen with his mouth moving wordlessly, trying to construct a sentence that wouldn't come to him. And then he saw Saul Tigh's eyes bulging out of his head, anger and confusion printed all over the older man's face, and a glint of humour at Tigh's discomfort returned Gaius' ability to speak.

"Me?!" Was all he could come out with – he was speaking, but perhaps not very coherently. His exclamation woke Pheme, who let out a thin yowl and as Gaius quietened her and put her up over his shoulder, rubbing her back rhythmically, he had a chance to order his chaotic thoughts.

Romo Lampkin ascended the porch steps and stood at the top with that frakking enigmatic smile on his face, waiting patiently.

"Me?" Gaius asked again and Lampkin nodded.

"I know it seems an…unusual choice–"

"Unusual? Frakking unusual?" Tigh growled sotto voce, and Lampkin continued smoothly,

"But if you think on it, you are the most suitable candidate at this point. To speak frankly, I need a supporter to solidify my position over the Council. Another person whom I know will vote…well, it's somewhat crude, but who will vote the way _I_ need them to. And you, Mr Baltar, are the best option I have."

"Well that's not saying much about any other potential candidates, is it now?" Gaius drew his brows together, shaking his head and frowning, hand smoothing over Pheme's blanket wrapped back.

"Why would _I_ of all people make a suitable candidate? I mean, look at my track record. I committed treason, I…well, suffice it to say I hardly think that forgiveness stretches far enough to make me Vice-President."

"To be perfectly plain, Baltar, I want you because the people, gods know why, seem to have a fondness for you. They don't remember Gaius Baltar the traitor, for the most part. They have short memories, the masses. They remember you in your role as the charismatic leader, God's chosen man – a man who cared and believed and sacrificed for them." Lampkin clearly did not share the general public's opinion of Gaius, and Gaius himself cringed with shame as he flickered through his memories. He didn't like what he had been.

Oh, of course the person Gaius had been was still a big part of the person he was now, but he had been altered, tempered. It had been the decision to stay on Galactica and do what little he could to try to rescue Hera Agathon. That had been the pivotal point. One little choice – choosing to be something other than completely selfish – being genuinely willing to risk his life; not out of self-loathing or politics, but because it was _right_.

He brought himself back to the present, a pained smile edging onto his face as he stared at Romo Lampkin.

"And?"

Lampkin grinned as though he had been caught out, and shrugged,

"And the most fanatical members of the anti-tech faction are also largely the core members of your old cult."

Ah, well that made sense of Romo's visit now.

"You hope that bringing me into government will give you more leverage with Lee Adama's movement. You plan on getting me to use my old connections and past position of power to influence the dissidents." Gaius laughed and shifted the bundle of baby so she was cradled in his arms, swaying her gently,

"I can tell you now, Mr President – it won't work."

"I know your influence would be greatly limited, but at this point we are forced to try every avenue, no matter how slim the chances of success, to attempt to avoid violence." Lampkin was composed, his eyes on the bundle of Pheme that Gaius held, and Gaius felt oddly possessive of his daughter, cuddling her tightly under Lampkin's lingering gaze.

"I have come here today to offer you the Vice-Presidency – with certain conditions attached."

"And they would be?" Gaius didn't plan on taking the job, but he wanted to know the details before he made any rash decisions.

"You would take on the role of Vice-Presidency, with the payment in goods and services that entails, the duty of attending the Council meetings and so on, and all the usual conditions." Lampkin seemed nervous, and Gaius realised that he really was Lampkin's best option. Poor fellow.

"The, ah…confidential conditions would be that you would work with the dissidents to try and find some middle ground with them, and that you would vote as I wished on matters on the agenda."

"Just come right out with it, hmm? Want me to be your hired boy? Do your bidding in return for an eventual, possible shot at the Presidency?"

Lampkin nodded once, stance tense.

Gaius thought it over, long and hard, fingers playing with Pheme's tiny waving hand, her big dark eyes solemn on his face. He didn't think he needed to consult with Caprica – he knew what she would say to him. He looked back up at the President.

"Sorry, but no thanks. I'm not interested."

Lampkin obviously had half-expected that – his expression disappointment but not surprise.

"You are not the client I represented, are you, Mr Baltar?"

"Actually, Mr President, I am." Gaius smiled serenely at Romo Lampkin, feeling strangely at peace. He had just given up the prospect of power, responsibility, and a certain small fame – oh, and _importance_! And yet Gaius felt good about the choice he had made. It felt right.

"I won't argue, but if you change your mind…?"

Gaius smirked as an errant thought popped into his mind, dry and amused,

"If you're wanting a Vice President, then try Helo Agathon. If you ever need a moral compass, he's your man. Even his name – _Agathos_ – means 'good'. There's your Vice President – not me. I had my chance, and I blew it."

Romo Lampkin's forehead creased ever so slightly.

"I may just do that."

He looked longingly again at Pheme, opened his mouth to speak and paused. Gaius sat uncomfortably through an objectively short silence that seemed to drag on and on.

"May I?" Romo Lampkin asked quietly and gestured to Pheme, holding out his arms slightly. Gaius swallowed but bobbed his head up and down in assent. He stood and nestled his daughter in Lampkin's arms, and Lampkin looked down at Eupheme and a flash of naked pain was so raw on his face that Gaius had to look away. He cleared his throat and looked down at his daughter's face, staring curiously at the strange man above her.

"She's a fine healthy girl. You must be proud." Lampkin's voice was strangely choked with emotion, and Gaius flicked an unobtrusive glance at the President's face. Standing this close, Gaius could see Lampkin's eyes were wet behind his tinted glasses.

"I am. Very." Was all Gaius could say, his chest hurting and his own throat feeling clogged as he discreetly looked at Lampkin's composed face, at the pain tightly contained beneath the surface.

# # #

"Let me guess, Mister President." Tigh asked as they traipsed across Gaius Baltar's fields – by far the largest, healthiest looking farm in the Landfall area.

"You want to go and see Agathon now. Am I right?"

His feet ached, his head he was sure was burning even in the late afternoon sun, and he wanted to go home and have a cold drink and a squeeze of Ellen's ass.

Romo Lampkin paused in his steady pace, no sign of his recent injuries showing bar a slight cautiousness in the way he walked, careful of his abdomen.

"I'm not sure if that would be wise. Perhaps… I do not think Karl Agathon would be eager to take on such a role…"

"Well then, better get back to Landfall." Tigh said bracingly and turned in the direction of the settlement.

"But then…"

Tigh growled quietly and stopped. He knew it. They were going to have to traipse all the way through the godsdamned forest. Frak.

# # #

"What was that about, Karl?"

He looked up from where he crouched in the chill water of the stream, hands immersed as he stacked up stones under Hera's precise and bossy instruction.

"I just got offered a job." Helo straightened and tousled Hera's long wild curls, leaving her to work on her little dam building project while he splashed out of the water and went to meet his wife. Sharon's long dark hair was tied limply back in a tail and her hands pushed into the base of her spine, enormous belly distended outwards. She looked tired and overheated and just as beautiful as the day he'd first realised he loved her.

Helo kissed her forehead and slipped behind her, kneading her lower back gently, eliciting a contented sigh from her lips.

"What sort of job?" Sharon asked after a long moment, turning to face him. Helo rested his hands either side of her stomach and felt the baby moving within, a highly disconcerting feeling. Nudges and random bulging that gave him both a feeling of awe, and a queasy sensation in his own stomach.

"Lampkin asked me if I wanted to be Vice President." He laughed softly,

"Can you imagine? Me, Vice President?"

Sharon looked up into his face and bit her lip, a worried expression settling on her face.

"What did you say?"

Helo knew Sharon wouldn't want him to take the position, whether he wanted it or not. She wanted him to stay out of politics, out of the petty and vicious games that played on dangerous and discreet behind the scenes. Even now, when the colonists had every reason to support each other and work together they picked at each other. Little betrayals and sneaky manoeuvres and alliances meant to gain them what snippets of power were available on this struggling, burgeoning civilisation. It was pointless and harmful, and said something very sad about humanity.

"Well?" Sharon prodded and Helo blinked, came back to reality. He could hear Hera splashing in the stream behind them, singing a soft song to herself as she wedged sticks and stones carefully together. He smiled down at Sharon,

"I said thank you. That I was surprised by the offer." He had been. The way Lampkin had just bluntly come out with it, face unreadable – saying Gaius Baltar had recommended Helo to him. Gods, the world was a frakking strange place sometimes.

"And?" Sharon jabbed Helo in the side and he jerked, grabbed her hand and linked his fingers through hers.

"And then I said no, of course. What did you think I would say? Me, Vice President? Frakking ridiculous – that's not me at all."

Relief smoothed the tautness from Sharon's cheeks and lips, left her smiling and relaxed, her thumb stroking over the hand Helo clutched hers with.

"Good. You know I don't like the idea of you being involved in all that political bullshit. We've been through enough shit since the Fall. I don't want to go back to where we were. Tangled in everything." Memories clouded her dark eyes and Helo sighed and drew her closer, leaning his forehead down against hers.

"We won't, Sharon. I said no. Okay? We'll be fine."

"It's Romo Lampkin. Since when has he stopped until he gets what he wants?"

"I told him no. What else can he do?" Helo tried to reassure Sharon but she wasn't having any of it. She pulled away and looked past him at Hera. Helo followed her gaze to their little girl, dark hair a cloud, lips moving as she sang or talked under her breath, hands rippled and distorted under the water.

"I don't know, Karl. But I bet this won't be the end of it. If he really wants you as Vice President, he's not going to stop. There'll be something, I know it."

"Well, I can't do anything about that."

"I know." She sighed and let the topic go, leaning her head against Helo's shoulder. He wrapped his arm around her back, her skin feeling hot and sticky through her clothes, and squeezed her gently. Hera played contentedly on in the icy water of the stream, glancing up at her parents and grinning as wide as she could, waving her small hand.

"We better get Hera out of the water. She stays in there any longer and she'll get too cold." Sharon commented lazily, making no move toward their daughter. Helo smiled and patted Sharon's ass.

"You go on inside and sit down, I'll get the bug."

Hera felt chilled to Helo's touch despite the hot weather. The trees around the stream blocked out the dying afternoon sun, letting only trickles of weak light through, and she was only wearing shorts and a tee shirt, her hands and feet dipped in the water.

"C'mon, Hera-bug."

"I'm not a bug." Her voice was sweet and quiet and a little indignant.

"Okay, then. Monkey, time to get out."

"Not a monkey, and I don't want to get out. I'm playing!"

"You'll shrivel up like an old wrinkly date if you stay in the water much longer, and your fingers and toes'll freeze right off and float downstream. Come on. We'll go warm you up." Helo teased the little girl, scooping her up in a wriggling bundle of thwarted annoyance, and carrying her back toward the fire lit warmth of their cabin.

# # #

"Tigh. Can I speak to you for a moment, before you go?" Romo asked the grizzled man as they arrived at Romo's doorway finally. It was getting late, and he wanted to sleep, to give his throbbing wounds a break from all the activity – but he still had this mess with the deadlock to sort out, and then the dinner tonight. Romo was not in the mood for long plays and subtle manipulations.

"Guess so." Tigh scrubbed at his eye patch and nodded once.

They left Narcho outside – Romo's guards always stayed outside, allowing him his privacy. There was only the one way into the small building Romo called home, and that was the door.

"I have no qualms about my methods. I am a pragmatic man at heart, Saul. I tend toward the belief that the end _can_ justify the means." Romo dove straight into it, his eyes hard and flat behind his shades, standing far enough away from Tigh that he didn't have to tip his head back to meet the taller man's one eye.

Tigh just stood silently, face a carefully controlled blank.

"I don't like to employ means other than reason and logic, or perhaps emotions – convincing the other person that they want to do what I want them to. I dislike the use of force. But in this case I feel I must wield a stick alongside the usual carrot." He had Tigh's attention, the man barely veiling his creeping contempt.

"I need the deadlock broken, and I need the decision to fall on my side of things. I cannot have the dissidents inflamed by arrests. Things have settled down – been uneventful. Lee Adama assures me he has regained control over the rogue elements of the movement, and the would-be assassin is dead. Let it lie for now, Tigh."

"You threatening me, Mister President?" The way Tigh said his title always made the Mister sound like its long form – somehow both more formal and lower class than the ordinary Mr, Romo mused.

"I'm stating some facts, Colonel Tigh." He used the man's technically defunct title and saw Tigh shift, the utterance of rank familiar and welcome to Tigh's ears.

"These are the facts," Romo held onto the back of a chair for support, not dropping his eyes from Tigh's. Gods, his injuries bloody hurt after all that exercise.

"I am the President. I need a deadlock broken. You are the one vote I can sway, I admit that freely. I am not willing to constrain myself to the rules this time. I do not want to see Lee Adama in jail, and the dissidents left to fall into fanaticism without him – which they would. You know that as well as I do, Tigh."

"He holds part responsibility for what his man did to you, Mister President. And he's been allowed to go on stirring up his godsdamned trouble too long. It isn't right. He needs to be stopped. Frakking needs to be jerked back into line; reminded of what his priorities should be. He can't go doing this shit! He's a godsdamned Adama!"

Romo smiled faintly and tilted his head. Tigh had gotten awfully worked up over this, in a way Romo knew he wouldn't have if Mr Adama had been someone else.

"He's not the Admiral, Saul. He's not your friend Bill Adama."

Saul went red and spittle flecked his lips,

"Don't you frakking go there, sir. I don't give a frak if you're the President or not – that's my godsdamned business, you understand?"

"You've been compromised, Saul – your objectivity. You _know_ that Lee Adama doesn't deserve to be jailed. You _know_ we shouldn't be stirring up the hornet's nest."

"So what, you're gonna _make_ me cast my vote your way? How're you gonna do that, huh?"  
"I am willing to justify the means by the end, Saul." Romo said the words quietly but with great weight, and saw Tigh searching for the truth on Romo's face – whether or not Romo meant his bold intimations. They both knew what Romo was implying when he said that.

"Next in line for your position is Kara Thrace–"

"Starbuck. Pah!"

"And if you were to no longer be head of LanSec, for…whatever…reason, well, she would vote as I wished." Romo's voice was pleasant, but a cold eddy ran beneath his words.

"So what are you trying to say?"

"I know you value your job." Romo was not going to mention anything more incriminating than that, guiding the conversation gently away from the attention-grabbing strong statements at the beginning and into more neutral territory. Safer ground, legally speaking – although none of this was stable ground legally speaking; all quicksand.

"What, you aren't gonna threaten to knock me off? Have me 'disposed' of if I don't vote your way?" Tigh uttered his suspicions sarcastically aloud and Romo kept smiling, pleased that for once lately a conversation was going the way he planned.

"Is that what you thought? No, no – I'm simply offering you some friendly advice, Saul. Think about your vote. Don't allow your personal feelings regarding Mr Adama to influence your decision. I know you take great pride in your position, in running security. But I need a man with good judgement in that role. Think about what is best for the colonists here – and not just the ones in Landfall, but also the ones in Lee's faction. They are people too, Tigh. Families. We don't want bloodshed."

Romo ended with a tone that pleaded for reasonableness, hand still gripping the chair back firmly as his knees threatened to give out and his stomach screamed blue murder. He kept his shaded eyes on Tigh, watching the man's expression shift like a chameleon's, from controlled anger and fury to a resigned resentment.

"No. We don't want that." Tigh managed, and Romo nodded, gesturing toward the door and moving toward it himself. Tigh got the hint.

"So you'll think about it, then?" Romo asked as the door to the outside world opened and revealed the rich gold of late afternoon sunlight and Narcho leaning against the wall gilded by the sun, his gun casually in its holster and his eyes scanning the street.

"I will." Tigh responded as though the words pained him.

"Frakking friendly advice." He shot a death glare at Romo and the President gave his head of security a sympathetic but helpless look. What could Romo do about it, really? He was almost as trapped as Tigh now felt. It was all just one big chain of people manoeuvring others into corners, trying to give them no option but capitulation. Sometimes you had to be willing to cheat to win – or even merely stay in the running. He grinned to himself, playing his last card.

"Actually, Tigh, there was one more thing."

Tigh growled to himself and stepped back inside, reluctant but obedient.

"What?"

"Shut the door, please." Romo answered and waited until Tigh had done so before he spoke again,

"I also need you to do something else for me."

"Full of _requests_ aren't you, Mister President?"

"Indeed." Was all Romo said, and waited silently for Tigh's curiosity to force him into asking for more information.

"This is going to involve more godsdamned walking, isn't it?" Tigh finally said sullenly, and Romo grinned again.

"In point of fact, it shall not. It may, however, involve more paperwork."

"Oh, brilliant." Tigh rejoined,

"I think I'd prefer the frakking walking."

Romo explained carefully what he required of Tigh, and the man's visage grew ever more dour as Romo talked. Tigh would have indeed preferred something with more walking. But as Romo had just been pondering, sometimes you didn't have a choice – you had to play with the cards you were dealt, or forfeit the game. When Tigh left, at last, it was with a heavier step than when he had arrived; projecting fuming resigned resentment in an aura around him.

"Don't forget dinner! Tonight, eight sharp!" Romo called lightly after Tigh's swiftly retreating figure, and smirked to himself as he saw Tigh's shoulders hunch up around his ears in reaction.

# # #

_Author's Note:_ So, this chapter is kind of an in-between chapter, with not an awful lot happening except character development. It is however necessary to the overall season arc and character arcs IMO. And I like it, so there's that :p

Please leave a comment, I love, love, love to hear your feedback!

_Notes Regarding Starbuck:_ Ok. Well, I've had, as I said, a few questions about Starbuck and Lee/Sam, so I'll do my best to answer them…mostly using an interlude.

"_Interlude: Black and White Disorientation" _will take place and be posted between the end of _"Episode Three: Said the Spider to the Fly" _and the beginning of _"Episode Four: The Trials and Tribulations of Parenthood"_, in the hopes of it providing some clarification on and insight into Starbuck's feelings, and also 'cause it's an awesome little plot that popped into my head and I love it.

It features Starbuck, two lions (not as straightforward as it sounds) and Lee! And zebras! Who doesn't love zebras? Kind of dark and intense, and _M-rated _for violence and sex. It isn't a strictly necessary read for the series, but does hint at and develop character and story arcs.

I'm just over halfway through writing it, and it will probably turn out to be around 7 – 8,000 words, in two parts, _Part One - Spiritus Mundi & Part Two - Inimicus Animo._

On to non-interlude related notes re Starbuck - to be honest, I never actually had a preference for a 'ship for Starbuck myself, so I feel relatively unbiased as to who I _want _her to be with (which could always turn out to be no one this season – I do plan on writing another season, but maybe make it a shorter 'half-season'.)

I feel there are really great and interesting aspects to both Lee/Starbuck and Sam/Starbuck, and also, some really negative aspects, which this series does/will explore in some depth.

In regards to the issues I have with Starbuck being in a relationship with Lee…well, I feel like there are a lot of problems under the surface regarding their history, feelings of guilt seeing as Starbuck was with Zack etc, and that despite the intense attraction and connection, their relationship was never a healthy one – and you can see that in the impact their feelings for each other have on their lives, causing all these bad things to happen. _But_ – but – that doesn't mean they can't _develop_ a healthy relationship!

Obviously, Sam in the series is in a coma (so far – nothing is ever certain *evil laugh*), so there won't be any hanky panky there…yet/ever?

But basically, I still haven't decided where things are going to go for Starbuck, romantically speaking, and unfortunately I think that reflects in my writing a little – leaving options open, so to speak. I looked back over what I've written so far, and realised that things could be…well, a little confusing for the reader.

I can excuse that to a certain extent, as we're seeing things from the character's perspectives, and when the characters themselves are confused, or in denial etc, their thoughts aren't always linear and clear. Contradictory thoughts and actions are part of that limited perspective.

_Final Note:_ Oooh, I am halfway through writing _"Episode Four: The Trials and Tribulations of Parenthood"_ right now, and ohmigod it's so exciting and crazy-awful-heartbreaking-intense! I can't wait to get it posted :D


	5. Interactions Between Entities - Eight pm

! Important Note: Both this chapter and the end of the last chapter have been rewritten in order to increase coherency and general awesomeness! Please re-read the short ending scene of the previous chapter before reading this one. !

_Disclaimer: _Nope, still doesn't belong to me – damnit.

_Author's Notes_: Thanks to everyone who has reviewed. Virtual appreciation is coming through your USB…now. This chapter is _T-Rated_ for lack of sexing.

It is now all fixed up, with perhaps 70 – 80% of it having been rewritten, and as such is no longer weird and not-quite-fitting the rest of the story. Okay, well maybe it's still weird, but in a good way now, IMO. In fact, I'm quite proud of how it has turned out, with one caveat…it is very late, I am sooo sleepy, and typos _do _have this habit of seeding themselves throughout the text. All hail the beneficent Goddess Tpyos! Anyway,

_Enjoy!_

# # #

Romo turned back inside after a nod to Narcho, and peered into the shadows at the back of his small house – behind the screen that hid his bed from the main area there was movement. He froze, wondering if he should be worried and call Narcho back in or if it was…

"You would not really carry out what we all knew you were implying, would you?" Manya's voice carried across the room as she emerged around the screen, clad in an outfit that flattered her most attractively– a dress that looked the colour of thunderclouds in this light, knee length and clinging to her compact curves like smoke. Romo smiled into her eyes as she reached him, fingers nimbly removing his dark glasses and hooking them over the skimming scoop of her neckline.

"You don't need to ask me, Manya, you already know." He told her, brushing a fall of long dark hair off her face, to join the rest slithering loose down her back. Her lips went tight and her eyes clouded over like her dress, darkened and a little sad.

"You would have taken away his job?" She avoided the implied.

Romo shook his head, sighing with slight irritation.

"I don't have to do anything now. He'll make the right decision."

"Yes, but because you threatened him, or because it was right?"

"Does it matter?" She was disappointed in him, and that pained him more than it should have. He detached himself from her, went behind the screen and began to strip. His clothes were dirty and sweaty, and he needed to look nice for the dinner party, not like a bedraggled farmer. Tired amusement crossed his face at the thought of the approaching dinner.

"I think it does. It is the difference between loyalty, which once garnered is forever assured, and fear, which must always be distrusted and reasserted." Manya sat comfortable in the centre of Romo's bed and watched him as he washed, her face solemn.

"You think he fears me? Saul Tigh?"

"I think he will vote according to what he feels is right. He is too stubborn to be made to fear you, and too distrusting to be made loyal. But despite his bluster and resentment, I believe he will vote the way you want – although not because of your threats, but despite them."

"I hope you're right." Romo eased into a fresh shirt, leaving it open as he eyed Manya.

"What about the rest of the conversation your prying ears overheard?"

"An interesting decision. One which I expect was not one you came to willingly." Manya gave Romo an arch look and he acquiesced to her logic, frown on his face. He did not like being forced into a corner. Romo Lampkin was not used to being thwarted.

"I did not. And I in no way am happy with having to go to Tigh…but I don't expect the decision will have any impact on anything. It's just a stop gap measure, until I achieve what I _really _want."

Manya smirked at him, seeming to find humour in Romo's predicament.

"You anticipated it though, if my theories about the main purpose of this dinner is correct." She prodded at him, verbally and physically, one fingertip poking into his chest lightly. Romo pursed his lips. She never missed a bloody thing.

"I anticipate and plan for every possibility."

"Oh really?" She asked him pointedly, with a glance at his abdomen, and no doubt other mistakes he had made and occurrences he had been unable to prevent hovering in her mind. It was like Romo could see them, floating around her head, irritating him.

"In as much is humanly possible. I am not omniscient, Manya." He retorted, playfully rebuking as he dug through his bedside drawer for his watch.

His groping fingers passed over the photo of his daughters as he rummaged, and his good mood disappeared as sharp a pain lanced into his chest, feeding what had been threatening to consume his mind since he had arrived at Baltar's home.

Gods, it didn't get any bloody easier, despite what people said. Holding Eupheme Baltar today had brought it all back. For a moment the infant had been Jennifer, or Kate…the memories brought forth clear as reality, even though it had been years now since they had died, and many more years since they had been newborns. Gods. He remembered it so well. The smell of a baby, the feel of their skin. The way they looked up with big, curious eyes.

"Romo?" Manya's hands were whisper-like on his upper arms, her breath warm on his back. He straightened and cleared his throat, finally snagging his watch and shutting the drawer firmly.

"I'm fine."

"You are not fine. And this isn't about Tigh, or the Council, or the dissidents. Something is bothering you."

Manya was more insistent than usual and Romo flinched away from her concern, unwilling to be opened up raw and vulnerable in front of her. Funny. He could frak her, sleep with her, but he couldn't talk to her about what really mattered.

She sensed his hesitation and curled back up on the edge of the bed, arms encircling her drawn up knees.

"I am sorry. I shouldn't pry. My training, coming out. I thought I had subdued it." She apologised gracefully and sincerely, a hint of humour colouring her voice, and the awkward moment passed in a heartbeat.

Romo jerked on his trousers and rolled up his sleeves to the elbow – it was too hot to button the cuffs; the house absorbed the daytime heat and radiated it through the large room until well past sunset. It was almost sunset now. Romo reminded himself that he needed to get on with dinner if he wanted it all prepped and cooked on time. He went through to the rudimentary kitchen space and started pulling things out, managing a warm smile for Manya who had unfolded herself from the bed and followed behind him cat-like.

"Do you need help?" She asked in her quiet, soothing tones. Romo pulled out the container of potato-like roots from under the bench and looked over at her, leaning against the bench a foot away from him, her eyes dark and understanding.

He sat the container on the bench, swallowed.

"I held Eupheme Baltar today." Was all he said. It was all Manya needed to hear. Her mouth formed a small 'o', She moved toward him and he wondered foggily what she was going to do. He didn't want…he didn't know what he wanted, except that he didn't want to let it all out. He wasn't ready for that. He just wanted to…acknowledge the existence of his feelings in front of another human being.

Manya's lips were soft and supple when they met his, and her hands removed the container of potato roots from him and placed it on the bench, before cradling his face tenderly, thumbs scraping over the stubble on his jaw. It was a long kiss, lingering, and although it was just lips pressed together, it was such an intimate human contact. Romo didn't quite know how he felt about it, and just stood, letting her kiss him, his hands finally, numbly, clasping her waist, mind running a loop of his daughters, of Gaius Baltar's daughter. Of his wife; by no means Romo's soul mate or the perfect woman, but the mother of his children none-the-less. And he felt disloyal to both of them for thinking of her while Manya kissed him.

Then Manya stepped back and smiled at Romo, caressed his cheek.

"I can't truly understand – I have never been a parent. But intellectually, I know…if you need to talk, Romo, I am here, and I am safe."

And then as though nothing momentous, or shaking, or, in hindsight probably horrendously _awkward_ had happened, Manya turned to the bench, picked up a knife, and began dicing potato root, humming quietly and tunelessly to herself.

Romo stood frozen a moment longer, his eyes on Manya. The heavy drift of her hair down her back, the strength in her hands, the incredible mind contained within her flesh and bone. An unidentifiable feeling crept slowly over him, and he tried not to analyse but just enjoy it; a practice alien to him.

# # #

Walking through the darkening forest down to the plains, and the settlement that straddles both are two figures, one complaining for the dozenth time,

"I don't want to go."

"Yeah, well neither do I. But we're going."

"Do you have any idea how _awkward_ this is going to be for me?"

"You say awkward, I say hilarious."

"Frak, that is just cold. And godsdamnit, it's not just Colonel Tigh – Ellen is going to be there! A dinner with Ellen Tigh. Sweet, merciful Zeus, just strike me down now - please."

"What _is_ your deal with Ellen and dinner parties? The woman doesn't bite. And I'll be there to protect you."

"Hah, bad memories. Intense aversion resulting from past trauma. Deep, _deep_ emotional scarring. But that was years ago. Things are different now, I hope… Eesh, just drop it, okay? We'll survive this, and then we will go home and never do this again. Ever."

One is self-deprecatingly sulky and embarrassed, and the other laughs with snorting delight, badgering the other to tell the story of the dinner party-related trauma Ellen Tigh appears to have inflicted on her companion.

# # #

"You were going to change your vote _anyway_."

"I know that! But it frakking pisses me off that now he thinks _he's_ the reason I'm casting the vote the way he wants. Almost makes me want to change my vote just to stick it in his face. I'm not his godsdamned pawn."

"Oh, Saul… You can't jeopardise your job – it's a good one, with good benefits. Better than having to go out hunting or farming in order for us to get by. Don't go doing anything stupid, please. Anyway, I like having a husband who is the head of LanSec. It makes people see me as something other than 'that Cylon we don't quite trust'. Which I have to say, I rather like."

"Hah. You don't need to worry about it, I'll let him think I'm being a good little frakker and doing as I'm ordered. It'd be a lot more than my job at stake, Ellen."

"You don't think he'd really…?"

"I'm not about to try and find out, am I?"

"No…no. Of course not. I think I like you alive and breathing, Saul."

"I'd prefer to keep it that way myself. Well. Godsdamnit. We better go get this frakking dinner over and done with."

"It won't be _that_ bad."

"Humph, so _you_ say."

# # #

Romo Lampkin's house was small and basically furnished within, but neat and tidy and notably nicer than Ellen and Saul's house. The floors had actual carpet down, and the walls were painted a pale utilitarian grey, candles suspended in a pretty chandelier-type contraption above the dining table, which sat in the centre of the house, casting a cosy glow. More of them were dotted about the large room, shining small puddles of light over the tiny lounge area to the right of the front door, the kitchen at the back, and a faint glow came from behind the door that led to the composting toilet room. The area behind a screen at the back right of the house was dark, and Ellen assumed it must be the President's bedroom, and inconspicuously craned her neck to try and see behind the screen. It was a nice enough house, and Ellen wondered why _he_ got carpet and she and Saul hadn't. That hardly seemed fair. Saul was an important man in the government, and she felt he deserved some recognition for all the hard work he did – all the sacrifices he had made over the past several years. And she was not exactly unimportant either. She grinned ruefully at her automatic mental complaints, reminding herself that things were different now. Everything had changed – she shouldn't still be finding things like _carpet_ important. And yet somehow…she still did.

After privately judging every inch of the house, and finding much of it lacking and in need of a personal touch – Romo's home could not be more Spartan if he _tried_ – Ellen wandered over to the dinner table, where everyone was finding their seats, nervous and stilted. She rolled her eyes at their childishness; surely they could all manage to be polite and have just one pleasant evening. Gods, it had taken her far too much effort to try and jolly Saul into coming after he'd come home in a fury, Romo having offended him like that.

Saul was such a baby sometimes; he didn't understand that personal feuds could be magnanimously overlooked – and that to do so made you the bigger person, which also meant you automatically won the feud. And of course, these days, feuds were an unhelpful thing to be indulging in anyway. Romo Lampkin was mostly a good President, making good decisions, and under his leadership the settlement was thriving. Ellen thought that Saul would recognise and appreciate that, but he still seemed so stuck in the past. Mired down in his memories of the time before he knew he was a Cylon. Sometimes Ellen got sick of it, and heartily wished he'd move on – look to the future. No point in dwelling on what can't be recovered.

Ellen smoothed her daringly cut dress down and smiled around the table, the expression mostly pasted on. She wasn't particularly happy to be here herself, and she had no idea _why_ they had been invited. Having a dinner party seemed a strange sort of thing to do, which of course made it an obvious choice for Romo Lampkin. Ellen had given up trying to understand him.

One thing Ellen had not expected Romo Lampkin to _have_, in a manner of speaking, was the young woman who had been here already when Ellen and Saul had arrived. She had been standing at the kitchen bench pouring glasses of palm wine, a makeshift apron wrapped around her dress, seemingly perfectly at home in the President's house. A pretty woman, petite and with extremely long black hair and an air of serenity and poise about her.

Romo had introduced the woman as Manya Yelizarov, one of the Councillors and his _friend_. Hah, friend – Ellen didn't believe that for a second. She had been around for an _extremely_ long time, and she recognised mutual attraction when she saw it. Not that the pair of them were outwardly affectionate, but Ellen could tell. Romo Lampkin had been sneaking glances at Manya every few minutes, and the look in his eyes did _not_ say 'friend'. Manya Yelizarov was harder to read; whatever her emotions towards Romo were Ellen couldn't quite tell, the woman was a sea of peaceful, self-contained calm.

The food was some sort of stew on a bed of mashed potato-root, and it was, Ellen had to admit, utterly delicious. Beautifully spiced and seasoned; a medley of flavours that complemented each other exquisitely. Beside Ellen, Saul shovelled his food away voraciously, and she had to elbow him discreetly in the side with increasing viciousness to get him to slow down and act with some manners. He'd already drunk far too much far too quickly; probably to try and make the evening more bearable. Stupid man, Ellen thought affectionately.

"So, Manya – how long have you and Romo been _friends_?" Ellen popped a forkful of stew in her mouth and smiled slowly as the woman's eyes widened ever so slightly, and Romo paled, barely noticeable in the candlelight.

"Oh, since Gemenon, actually. We met at a party for the faculty of the University I had tenure at, and ran into each other over the years at similar events."

"Really? How fascinating. It must have been lovely to be able to renew your _acquaintanceship_ here on Earth." Again Ellen weighted their relationship descriptor and was rewarded by seeing Romo drop his eyes to his plate and fiddle nervously with his utensils. The man was uncharacteristically rattled tonight. It intrigued Ellen, and where she sensed weakness she found it hard not to prod for more information – it was like a compulsion. It was not one of her finer traits, but was a habit that was very hard to eradicate. Not that she had really tried, admittedly.

"Very much so. Romo is an incredibly kind, intelligent man, and a good friend – in the best sense of the word." The Gemenon accent bled through Manya's voice and pattern of speech, sounding curiously exotic, and Ellen quirked an eyebrow,

"Goodness, you speak so highly of him. I doubt I could speak so highly of even my Saul."

"I'm sure there is much you could praise about your husband, Ellen." Manya retorted easily, picking at her food, and Ellen squeezed her lips flat. She wanted to corner Manya into opening up more about her and Romo, but the woman kept adroitly dodging her probes.

"Oh, I don't know about that. Saul…well, Saul is Saul." She replied with an exaggerated approximation of a long-suffering wife's expression.

"What?" Saul's head jerked up and he stared at Ellen, mouth distended by a mouthful of stew as he registered his name being spoken.

"You see what I mean?" Ellen teased lightly and she and Manya both laughed, eying each other sharply. The other woman knew the game Ellen was playing, and was matching her point for point.

"So…" A voice broke into Manya and Ellen's repartee and Ellen scowled internally. It was that girl Kara Thrace – Starbuck. Ellen was as keen on her as Saul was – which was to say, a grudging respect for her skills mixed in with personal dislike. Not that there was really anything in particular to dislike about the girl, but something about her irritated Ellen. She didn't like spending time around Starbuck; the young woman somehow aggravated her. There was something about her…Ellen couldn't quite put her finger on it. Something more than met the eye. It was like she couldn't quite…Ellen's mind slithered and slipped away from the unformed thought and she was left with just that vague dislike that she didn't question.

"Yes, dear?" Ellen bestowed a gracious expression upon Starbuck who almost recoiled from the look and blinked, confused.

"I, ah…"

The young woman looked awful – as though she had just come from a brawl, which she likely had; one eye swollen half-shut and bruises decorating her face like ghoulish make-up. Ridiculous. Ellen realised that they were living frontier life now, but turning up at a dinner hosted by the President, looking like a tenderised piece of meat, seemed somehow disrespectful. Childish. There were still some social standards that could be held to, such as not getting into a fight the day you have dinner with the President, that Starbuck was blatantly ignoring.

"Yes?" Ellen was at her most condescending.

"Never mind." Starbuck blurted and gulped down half her glass of wine. Interesting. Normally Starbuck was pushier than this; loud and confident and tactless, but she seemed as subdued as Romo Lampkin tonight, and just as edgy. Ellen amused herself with the idle thought of the two of them having an affair – now that would be entertaining. She smirked a little to herself.

Ellen watched as Lee Adama said something under his breath to Starbuck and she frowned, whispered something back with her lips barely moving, clutching her knife and fork tightly in her hands. They both seemed very tense. Ellen wondered what was going on between the two of them. They had become involved just a few weeks after the Fleet had arrived on Earth, Ellen believed, and since then she had heard snippets of rumour and gossip about troubles and tension. They looked like they made a good couple though, despite the tension.

Maybe they were just fiery, like she and Saul, Ellen's mind digressed filthily. She slipped her hand under the table and surreptitiously squeezed Saul's knee. He looked up at her and she waggled her eyebrows suggestively. He leered back and dropped a wink, foot finding hers beneath the table and toying with it.

Ellen's mind returned to Starbuck as she absentmindedly played footsie with Saul. What interested her, was that she knew Starbuck visited Samuel often – and she didn't _think_ that Lee knew that. It was a point in Starbuck's favour; that she hadn't abandoned Sam even though he was a Cylon and comatose. That the young woman had taken it relatively well, considering, and even now still went to see him in secret. Possibly risking her relationship with Lee, if he were to find out, if Ellen's suspicion that the visits _were_ clandestine was right. Ellen's attitude toward the young woman softened a little. She thought back over how often _she_ had gone to visit Sam lately, and counting it up in her head, felt ashamed of herself.

# # #

So far the evening had been awkward, but not openly unbearable. A tension hummed beneath the surface of the light dinner conversation. Romo Lampkin seemed a little distracted tonight, unusually for him, and Saul Tigh kept glaring ferociously at Lee; a rather uncomfortable experience. Manya Yelizarov, the Councillor, seemed nice enough. Relatively subdued, she was talking to Ellen, but her eyes keep skipping away to the other end of the table where Romo sat. Starbuck picked at her food as she talked to Romo about issues involving Landfall, and Lee didn't feel right joining _that_ conversation. And there was no way Tigh wanted to talk to him, so he just sat and ate, and waited for the evening to end. This was not at all enjoyable.

Lee couldn't figure out why Romo had wanted to do this, bring them all together. That Romo wanted to build bridges with Lee made sense, but then why invite the Tighs and Ms Yelizarov? Lee sipped at his wine and hunched down in his chair, wishing the time would pass faster. He felt nervous as he glanced across the table at Ellen, eyes narrowed, feeling suspicious paranoia tickle at the edges of his mind.

"So, Lee…" Ellen began with great interest, and Lee flinched as she addressed him, wondering if she had caught him staring, and then jolted in his chair.

Oh no.

A foot brushed against Lee's ankle softly and seductively and horror rounded his eyes. Oh _frak_. Bare toes awkwardly made their way up under his trouser leg and brushed over his bare calf. Oh gods. Against all odds _it was happening again_.

"_Meep!_ " Lee swore at himself inwardly and avoided Kara's confused look as he let out an undignified involuntary squeak, and shoved his chair back from the table abruptly.

"Lee?" Kara asked and Lee forced a smile onto his lips and shook his head at her slightly, brushing off her concern. Godsdamnit, that was _not_ okay. How was that okay? Answer: it wasn't.

Frak.

People paused in conversation and looked at him oddly, and Lee cleared his throat, managed a rictus of a smile, and wiped his mouth with his napkin. Tried and failed to look normal.

"Lee, for the gods sake, that's _my_ foot. Calm the frak down, you look like an _ass_." Kara hissed in his ear and he cringed and flushed bright red. Kara's foot. Of course. That made miles more sense; he just didn't think Kara would… Shame crept over him stealthily until even his ears were flushed hot pink.

"Sorry, I didn't think it was… I thought it was…"

"Gods, who else could it be?" Kara asked in an annoyed hiss, and then pulled her mouth away from his ear and looked at him with a glint in her eye and jaw slightly agape as realisation dawned.

"Oh my _gods_. You _have _to tell me what happened at that dinner with Ellen." She finished, and Lee cringed inwardly. Kara just smirked at him, lips twitching as she held in a laugh. He frowned at her and she poked out the tip of her tongue, and turned back to her meal as if nothing had happened, returning to the conversation that had been going between her and Lampkin.

She was too influenced by Lampkin; Lee didn't like it. He liked Romo, on a certain level, but he sure as hell didn't trust Romo not to frak with Kara's head.

"So, Lee, as I was saying…" A female voice broke through his thoughts and he glanced up at Ellen Tigh, sitting across the table from him, chin cupped delicately in her hand. He had completely forgotten she had been trying to talk to him. Gods. Her eyes were bright and sharp on him, and she smiled. Instinctively Lee tensed, irrational paranoia stealing back over him.

"How have you been, lately? Life can't have been easy for you at the moment, with the issues between your movement and Landfall." Ellen spoke lightly but with genuine interest, her gaze glued to his face and Lee gulped. He kept expecting her foot to come creeping under the table, as stupid as that was. Kept expecting a repeat of that frakking night years ago back on Galactica. He cleared his throat, smiling with a hint of terror,

"Um…" He tried to speak and came out with nothing, staring dumbly at Ellen. She seemed to take pity on him and dropped her gaze from his, stabbing up bits of meat on her fork,

"Tell me, Lee. What is life like without making use of the technological aids we have here in Landfall? Is it much harder to get by?" She elaborated, and Lee tugged at the neck of his shirt, telling himself not to be ridiculous. Ellen Tigh was not going to come onto him tonight. He'd already let that idea run away with him once tonight, and look where _that_ had got him. Besides, Ellen was not the same woman she had been back then. Okay, well, maybe she was still a _little_ that woman, but not enough to do _that_. He hoped. But just in case Lee drew his feet up under his chair, and then realised Ellen was staring at him with an arched eyebrow, waiting for him to reply.

"Um… Ah. No, not really. It's not like there's a lot of technology that can be easily used here in Landfall. Most of the machinery of course, is still on the ships because of lack of fuel, so it's not that different. Of course, in terms of simple materials – things to build with, making furniture, that sort of thing is more…involved. But people adjust, and learn the new skills needed." Lee explained, actually feeling grateful to Ellen for giving him something to do to pass the time, rather than sitting there awkwardly silent.

"What about medical care?" Ms Yelizarov broke into the conversation, pointing at Lee with her fork. He shrugged,

"We have a nurse, Ishay, and we're investigating local vegetation for medicinal purposes."

"But what about infections, surgery, things such as that?" Manya pressed on, and Lee winced to himself. This was a topic he didn't want to get into; it only led to arguments, and the atmosphere at the table was tense enough, with Tigh still shooting him a dark glare every-so-often.

"We don't have any recourse for such problems at the moment, and perhaps we never will. In my opinion, and most of the others, it is a sacrifice we are willing to pay. We're looking to the future," Lee warmed up to his subject,

"It's not just about us, here and now. It's about how our actions will form the future, centuries – millennia – down the line. We want to establish a world where humans and Cylons live in harmony with the land, and in turn, are regulated by the land." He shrugged stiffly as he noted Manya's disapproving expression,

"People die with or without modern technology, Manya."

"But they only die needlessly without it." She said and then snapped her mouth shut, eyes darting in Romo's direction and then back to Lee, expression immediately apologetic.

"I'm sorry. That was rude of me."

Lee shrugged again,

"No. Fair enough. You have your opinion; I have mine – just keep in mind that no one is stopped from leaving the community. It's entirely the choice of the individual as to whether they want to remain part of the movement."

"I think it holds a certain appeal." Ellen added, having been listening closely, leaning forward slightly toward Lee. A slightly flirtatious smile curved her lips and Lee flinched and tensed up with a second of déjà vu, and then mentally kicked himself. He had to relax before he imploded.

"You do?" He inquired neutrally and Ellen nodded.

"Yes. I must admit, the lifestyle intrigues me. Your community seems to be operated quite simply, and everyone helps one another, all working together for the common good. It sounds quite idyllic." Ellen smirked,

"But of course, I like my creature comforts too much. And Saul of course would…" She trailed off as Tigh glowered at them both, drawn out of the conversation between him, Romo and Starbuck by the sound of his name.

"I _what_, hmm?"

Ellen shrugged lightly with a smile, obviously trying to forestall any unpleasantness,

"Nothing Saul. I was just talking to Lee about his community. How you would never be interested."

Tigh seemed to ruminate for a moment and then harrumphed,

"Damn right I wouldn't. Thought that was obvious enough that it didn't need to be mentioned." And with a last scowl, turned back to his conversation. Lee shifted in his seat and bit his lip, the conversation abruptly killed.

"Well." Ellen said at last, more to break the awkward silence than anything, lee thought.

"Isn't it nice to all be around a dinner table together. Goodness, I remember the last little dinner party we were both at, Lee. When Bill found me and brought me on board Galactica." She raised an eyebrow and flashed a wicked smile and Lee's heart stopped for a moment, his grip tightening knuckle-white around his knife and fork. She wouldn't…

"A most _entertaining_ evening. Wasn't it?" She prodded coyly and Lee pressed his lips together and nodded,

"Yes." He managed to squeak out before clamping his mouth shut again.

"Such a long time ago. Everything has changed since then," Ellen mused, half to herself,

"Everything."

"For the better?" Manya asked Ellen, glancing up at the older woman with polite curiosity as she placed her knife and fork on her empty plate with a neat little clink. Ellen thought a moment.

"I don't know about that. Some things, yes. Others..."

Manya's eyes turned to Lee and he felt self-conscious, trying to think of something to say that wouldn't make him sound like an idiot.

"Change is inevitable." He finally came up with,

"There's no point in fighting it. I'm a different person now than I was back then – you just have to accept where life takes you. Go with it."

"A very healthy attitude, Mr Adama." Manya commented with a smile, but Tigh ruined the moment, again. It seemed like his theme for the evening was going to be glowering at Lee and making passive-aggressive jabs.

"Wouldn't say you've changed for the better though." Tigh grumbled, ostensibly to himself, but loud enough for everyone to hear. Lee clenched his jaw and straightened his shoulders, pointedly ignoring Tigh and not let the man know he was getting to Lee. He wasn't going to take Tigh's frakking bait and make a fool of himself. He was going to be godsdamned polite until he could leave. Gods, it was a shame – Lee was almost enjoying himself, if it wasn't for frakking Saul Tigh jabbing at him constantly.

And now the room was silent, Tigh's comment having disrupted conversation, and everyone was looking awkwardly away from Lee, trying to ignore the tension. It wasn't helping.

"Lee," Romo Lampkin addressed him brightly, and he looked over at the President with expectantly raised eyebrows, grateful for the timely distraction.

# # #

Luckily Romo was good at multi-tasking, because even as he discussed the problem of the natives with Starbuck and Tigh, his mind was elsewhere. On the feel of Eupheme Baltar in his arms, and the strange sensation that niggled inside him whenever he looked at Manya. Which was often, because he hadn't seemed to be able to take his eyes away from her this evening. It was growing annoying, and yet he couldn't help himself. Romo did not like feeling compelled to do things, and as such, his glances at Manya were reluctant and confused. She just looked so bloody gorgeous tonight. Radiant. Nothing at all like Faye though – the thought popped into his head from out of nowhere and Romo flinched, stumbling over a response to Starbuck. Why was he thinking of Faye now? Eupheme, that was why. She reminded him of his life before the Fall; of Faye and of his dau…

The dinner was going relatively well, Romo told himself faux brightly in a corner of his mind, as his mouth chattered on inanely to Starbuck and Tigh, saying all the right things without him having to supervise it. Although Tigh and Lee were still at the stage of near open hostilities – better than being immersed in open hostilities, Romo supposed dryly. He had hoped that the peer-pressure from everyone else would force the two of them to be polite, but so far it wasn't working. Tigh was making cutting, sullen remarks, and Lee was admirably doing his best to ignore them – for now. Romo sighed heavily. For once in his life he would like things to go perfectly smoothly.

Tigh broke away from the conversation to throw yet another barbed comment Lee's way, and Romo grimaced. He had to step in. The whole point of this dinner was to try and forge some neutral ground for Lee and Tigh, to give them a chance to practice being at least _outwardly_ civil. And Tigh was not going along with the script in Romo's head. Damn.

"Lee," Romo forced his muscles into a smile, trying not to think about the slight weight of warm sweet-smelling babies. Trying not to stare at the woman at the other end of the table. The younger man looked up at him with relief.

"I've been thinking lately about your community. As it looks as though the separation between Landfall and…your people…might continue for some time, I have been pondering on the idea of forming some official ties between Landfall and whatever you call yourselves."

Lee furrowed his brow, and the people gathered around the table were silent, listening curiously.

"What do you mean exactly, Romo?"

Romo tapped his fingertips on the table lightly and shrugged a scant inch.

"Neither you nor I particularly want dissent or violence to arise, do we now, Lee?" Romo smirked a little, and continued casually,

"So I've been thinking lately, it might be conducive to peace and good relations to treat your people as a separate community, like Beta and Wideskies. With trade deals, a person on the Council and such. I've been meaning to mention it to you for a while now."

Tigh stiffened in his seat and displeasure radiated off him, and Romo cocked an eyebrow at the man – a little reminder to behave. It seemed to work, if only just; Tigh subsided into his seat with a scowl.

"Interesting." Lee pondered, wisely not saying anything that would commit him to any particular course of action. The man was learning, Romo noted with an amused smile.

"A seat on the Council, you say? A tempting offer." Lee glanced up at Romo,

"Perhaps we should discuss this tomorrow…"

"Yes, of course. I'm not interested in discussing technical details right now; I merely wanted to float the concept past you. So you can take your time and think it over. I take it from your reaction that you are indeed interested?" Romo flashed another warning look at Tigh, simmering away in his chair, downing yet another glass of palm wine. The man was hitting the drink hard tonight, and ignored Romo's silent admonitions.

"I'm not sure what the community in general would react to the proposal, but I have to admit Romo, a seat on the Council is very tempting." He shot Romo a knowing stare,

"I wonder what the catch is."

"Ah, but then if I told you, half the fun in trying to figure it out on your own would be gone." Romo retorted mildly and Lee chuckled.

"I think you would do well on the Council though; you certainly took to politics like a duck to water on the Fleet."

"It was a change from piloting." Lee continued the light talk, each man assessing the other carefully beneath the inconsequential banter.

_Bang._

Tigh slammed his drink down on the table with a crash and everyone at the table jumped at the noise, Manya's hand flying to her throat instinctively and Starbuck half-rising to her feet before she realised it was just Tigh and embarrassedly sank back into her seat. Lee was the least surprised; he had flinched, but now his eyes were narrowed with annoyance, hard on Tigh's face.

Frak. This was not a good sign for the success of Romo's dinner.

# # #

Nothing was the same anymore. Tigh pondered the thought as he listened with half an irritated ear to Romo and Lee's conversation. By all rights it should be Bill Adama at the head of the table, not Romo Lampkin. Manipulative godsdamned bastard. Wasn't half the man Bill was. Tigh scrubbed a hand wearily over his face and took another long draught of wine, his face darkening at what the President was suggesting to Lee.

Gods, Bill would be ashamed of the boy – Tigh didn't see how he couldn't be. Dividing the colonists at a time when they needed to be united, causing strife, harbouring assassins and conspirators. Turning his back on everything important that he had once believed in. Something in the back of Tigh's mind echoed, _everything you believe in, you mean_, but he brushed the whisper away impatiently.

It infuriated Tigh to sit here and act polite, relatively speaking. Listening to Romo _woo_ the boy, godsdamnit. A place on the Council – hah, that was the last frakking thing Lee Adama deserved. If Tigh had his way, Lee would be in Landfall's lock up at this very moment. Definitely not enjoying the President's hospitality and having his frakking would-be revolutionary movement validated. A frakking seat on the Council. It was offensive. Tigh glowered at Lampkin, and the little man stared icily back, undaunted. Bastard.

Tigh drank some more, alcohol warming through him, putting a fire in his belly. He'd already drank too much tonight – he knew that even without the aid of Ellen's disapproving glances and warning nudges – but tonight, Tigh couldn't seem to bring himself to care. He was backed into a frakking corner on all fronts. If it wasn't enough for Lampkin to turn him into some godsdamned political puppet giving him responsibilities he'd _never _wanted, now Tigh had to eat dinner with a man who frakking disgusted him lately.

Tigh remembered the short time he had spent _interrogating _Lee, and a small vicious smirk curved his lips. There was a certain simple satisfaction to giving someone what he deserved. Lee might be the Admiral's son, but that didn't mean Tigh would go easy on him or let him off the hook for his frak ups. If anything, it was the opposite – the boy should know better. But then ever since Lee had gotten in cosy with Roslyn, it had all been a downward spiral in Tigh's opinion.

Lost in memory, Tigh wondered how different things would be if Bill hadn't left Landfall with Laura Roslyn. Probably no different, if he was honest with himself. The people, once safe on Earth, had turned away from the military that had kept their pitiful godsdamned asses alive all these years. The surviving colonists had forgotten all about the men and women who had sacrificed their own lives to keep the colonists safe, and turned their eyes to the politicians. Put their faith in bureaucrats; all double talk and petty power plays, motherfrakkers all. And now Romo Lampkin had made Tigh one of them.

The military had been taken apart, and in its place was LanSec, of which Tigh was the head – although Lampkin pulled a few strings in that area too, whenever he felt the urge. The same people who had made up the military worked as LPOs, for the most part, but now they had been reduced to mere police, honour and hierarchy taken away or altered beyond all recognition.

Tigh wished for the old days, even those frantic days right after the Fall – before he had these stupid, pointless memories of being a Cylon, before he had even _known_ he was a Cylon. Sure, things might be more peaceful now overall, but at what cost for Tigh? Ellen said he was too mired in the past, but who could blame him when his future was _this_.

He watched belligerently as Romo and Lee began bantering together like best buddies and his blood rose. Perhaps it was the alcohol, but whatever the trigger, Tigh had had enough.

_Bang._

He slammed his glass down on the table nearly hard enough to crack it, and with a furious glance at Romo, growled,

"You're seriously offering this motherfrakker a seat on the _Council_? Did you forget the part where his people tried to _kill_ you – and nearly succeeded to boot?"

Romo tried to deter Tigh with another of his patented cold stares, but it wasn't working this time. Tigh pais no mind to his President, railroading on,

"His dissident movement want us all to live like the godsdamned savages, and they have _proved_ they're willing to use violence to try to get their way." Tigh jabbed an angry finger at Lee, ignoring Ellen's sharp,

"Saul!"

"What d'ya have to say for yourself, huh? Going to insist again that you had absolutely no idea about the plot your people cooked up to assassinate the President?"

Lee Adama looked down at his hands for a moment, mouth tight.

"I didn't." he answered as his gaze slid back up to Tigh's face. Tigh huffed his disbelief.

"I didn't!" Lee protested, leaning forward, a spark of anger nestled in his voice.

"That's your story, and you're sticking to it, huh?" He mocked Lee, all his bottled up resentment and anger toward Lee and _everything _finally released. It fuelled itself, stoking fast into a bonfire blaze of anger.

"Well, that may be the case," Tigh allowed, needling at lee,

"You always were a godsdamned coward."

"Tigh. That's _enough_." Romo ordered, voice steely hard and Tigh curled his lip and nodded slowly.

"You're right, Mister President. That is enough. Enough pussy-footing around, pandering to this little frakker, that is."

"Tigh…" Romo tried but Tigh carried on his rant, in full swing now,

"You shouldn't even be here. You don't want to be part of Landfall. You reject what we're making here. Actively trying to destroy it! Gods, it disgusts me to have to sit across from you and be told to act polite."

"I understand you have a great dislike for me, Tigh, and the feeling is mutual, I assure you. But I don't think this is the right time to be airing our disagreement." Lee said composedly, and it just frakked Tigh off more to hear the boy playing at being the bigger man, the reasonable one. Tigh wasn't the one who had people under him playing at assassin – that was Lee. He acted so high and mighty, but he _wasn't_.

"Frakking lily-livered bastard. Can't even stand up and defend yourself, huh? You're a godsdamned insult to your father's memory!" Tigh goaded, and then sat back in his chair in shock as Lee shot to his feet, hands planted on the table as he leaned over it toward Tigh,

"You don't know my father is godsdamned dead." Lee hissed, more openly angry than Tigh had ever seen the man before; Lee's eyes flat and cold and glittering with something that frightened Tigh just a little. Tigh swallowed hard, one eye locked to Lee's dangerously hard two. He suddenly wished he'd never said anything, never goaded Lee into this. This was not what he had expected from Lee Adama of all people; to bite back.

"And just because you and him were war-buddies back in the day, good friends, comrades in arms…all that bullshit… That doesn't give you the right to say what he would have thought of what I'm doing. That doesn't give you the godsdamned right to _judge_ me in his stead."

# # #

Starbuck stared at Lee gape-jawed, just as stunned as everyone else present seemed to be as he loomed over the table at Tigh, eyes flashing.

"I don't have to _defend_ my choices to you. What are you to me? I'll tell you, Tigh, you're a washed up old Colonel, lost in the shades of the past. In the memories of glory and honour, and a golden time when things made sense to you."

Lee was really frakking tearing into Tigh, and the old man's mouth actually trembled slightly with emotion. Starbuck almost felt sorry for the tough old bastard.

"Because they don't anymore, do they Tigh? They don't. You are _irrelevant_ now, obsolete. I don't need to justify my actions to an irrelevant old man." Lee continued and Tigh blinked, looking suddenly very old and lined as Lee's words struck home. Starbuck laid her hand on Lee's arm and tugged at him, trying to get him to sit back down and shut the hell up.

"That's enough Lee. That's frakking enough."

He shook her arm off with more force than he needed to, and Starbuck slumped back into her chair with a scowl, crossing her arms. This was a side of Lee she hadn't seen before, and while to begin with it had been kind of hot, now it was just awful. Poor Tigh – a phrase Starbuck didn't often have cause to think.

"I have enough frakking guilt and…and _shit _to deal with without _you_ trying to add to it!" Lee's voice rose as he spat the words across the table, and then as though finally realising what he was doing and what he'd just said, clacked his mouth shut and abruptly plopped back down in his chair, hands balled up into fists where they rested on his thighs.

Starbuck's head tilted to one side and she stared with bewildered curiosity at Lee, who was looking at his lap intently. Now what the _frak_ did he have to feel guilty about? Was it Boxey he meant…? Because for some reason, Starbuck didn't think Lee had been talking about that. She was still as stunned as the other guests, trying to process Lee's totally unexpected eruption. Tigh getting shirty and being a frakking rude old bastard, well – you expected that. But _Lee_? Just exploding like that, all icy, quiet rage until just at the end there…that was something that no one had thought Lee would be capable of. Gods.

She bit her lip, tearing her eyes away from Lee at the sound of Romo's voice.

"Saul, Lee. Thank you both so much for the evening's entertainment. A most _enlightening_ performance from both of you. Bravo." Romo was on his feet, eyes shifting from Lee to Tigh, voice absolutely dripping with sarcasm. Starbuck felt herself wanting to cringe in sympathy with Lee, but instead she just stared at Romo transfixed, the evening taking on a dreamlike quality.

"I am the godsdamned President." Romo suddenly sounded furious, and Starbuck wondered with a hint of inappropriate humour if Romo was going to be the next one to snap and have a frakking rage-filled breakdown.

"You are both adults, or so I believed up until now. Bloody… You know, I actually had the uncharacteristic optimism to think that perhaps we could have a productive evening together, breaking down barriers and forming, if not friendship, then mutual respect."

He swallowed, calm and cool, Romo Lampkin once more; no trace of his strange mood remaining.

"We are in a survival situation here. Our continued flourishing as a species is by no means assured. It is _essential_ that we be able to work together despite differences in ideals, or personality. But as tonight has shown, Jake has more maturity and self-control than the pair of you."

Romo paused and looked around the room at the small group of people gathered.

"As of today, I have appointed Saul Tigh as my Vice-President."

Starbuck's jaw dropped once more. Tigh? Tigh the frakking _Vice-President_? No frakking way. Maybe Romo Lampkin _had_ gone insane, just more quietly than Lee. She glanced around the table at the faces around her, and saw varying degrees of shock and surprise on Lee and Ellen's faces, angry resignation on Tigh's, and interestingly enough, not a trace of surprise on Manya Yelizarov's. Figures – pillow talk was famous for people letting meant-to-be-secret bits of information slip.

"I sincerely believe that it is important that your group, Lee, and our community here in Landfall, be able to work together on some level despite our differences in certain ideals. As you will most likely be joining the Council, Lee, and there is a chance Tigh might have to assume the Presidency – and I hope not, I have no wish to die – at some point… Well, I had hoped that the two of you would be able to at the _very bloody least_, be civil."

Starbuck saw both Lee and Tigh shrink ashamedly in her peripheral vision, and smirked a little to herself. Good – they both deserved a good frakking reality check. Starbuck might have a reputation as a hothead, but Tigh and Lee had eclipsed her this evening. Romo clapped his hands together and smiled, a fake, brittle contortion.

"Thank you both so very much for restoring my abundant pessimism and misanthropy. Now, I do believe it is getting late." And having dismissed them all summarily and without warning, Romo clasped his hands behind his back and waited for them to pull themselves out of their stunned states and leave.

Starbuck debated whether to say something or not, but a look at Romo's face made her decide against; the tension radiating out from him, the little spasm at the corner of his mouth, the fluttering twitch of his left eyelid. No. Maybe not. Best to turn tail and flee, and desperately hope that Romo wasn't so furious tomorrow. Tomorrow Starbuck was doing the morning shift of Presidential bodyguard, and Romo was hellish to be around when he was in a bad mood. Snarky and constantly snippish, complaining about every godsdamned little thing.

Starbuck stood up and grabbed Lee's arm, yanking him to his feet abruptly and making him stumble, hissing in his ear,

"Come on, for gods sakes, Lee. What's wrong with you tonight? Let's frakking _go_ before he yells at you more." And made for the door, pausing in the doorway only to say, with a bright smile,

"Thank you for the dinner, Manya, Mr President. It was most entertain–" She snapped her mouth shut as Romo _looked_ at her, and decided against finishing that sentence, dragging Lee out into the streets of Landfall, which shimmered under the full moon's light.

# # #

_Author's Note:_ So that was the _revamped_ and now hopefully in character weirdness of Chapter Five. What do y'all think? It's just over a thousand words longer (My longest chapter yet, at 8,615 words), and while keeping the overall structure of the original chapter with tweaks, the content and atmosphere of the dinner party itself is quite different. I _hate_ rewrites, but I'm glad I did this one; I am _far_ more satisfied with this version of the chapter. It works into future character developments and story arcs way better, and just generally has a more fitting feel to it, I think.

But _your_ opinion is important too of course! Please leave a comment and let me know what you thought of the new and improved chapter :)

Oh, and a big thank you to reader _Timbo_ for your constructive criticism. You rock!

_The Clock Strikes – Midnight_ will go up late tomorrow rather than right now, to give me time to try and finish the chapter I'm currently writing. (I have a compulsion to have written an episode ahead of the one I'm posting.)

And then, after this episode, it's onwards to _Interlude: Black and White Disorientation_, which is finished at 8,529 words and two chapters long, and which I am _very_ pleased with, and then _The Trials and Tribulations of Parenthood_, my most intense episode yet. I actually got teary writing it, kids, totally choked up. Hand on heart honest (no, really, _honest_. I was _such_ a sook.)


	6. The Clock Strikes - Midnight

The Clock Strikes – Midnight

_Important Note: The end of chapter four, "_Play the Game – Four pm_" and the entirety of chapter five, "_Interactions Between Entities – Eight pm_" have been rewritten!_

_Author's Note: _ And here we are, at the end of Episode Three...

This chapter is _M-Rated _for a short scene of (mildly disturbing) sexing. I apologise for any emotional scarring caused to the readers by said sex scene.

This chapter also contains the best illustration of the sheer depth of love somebody feels for someone else that I have ever come up with. I am very proud of it – can you tell? :D

_Enjoy!_

# # #

Manya stacked the last of the dinner dishes on the bench to air-dry, and looked around the house. Everything was clean and tidy at last – the table cleared, the leftovers stored in the food safe to keep fresh until tomorrow, and all the candles snuffed save one on the shelf above the sink, and another in the bedroom, the light flickering through the screen. It looked so cosy, so welcoming. She stifled a yawn and took down the candle, flame dancing madly as she carried it over to the screen and stood in the small gap, looking through at Romo.

In the dim and flickering light he looked pensive, lying on the bed still fully clothed, hands folded on his stomach, looking up at the ceiling unblinkingly. It had not been a good day for him today, and Manya forced down the urge to crawl onto the bed next to him and tell him all the things she always held back. She didn't think Romo would find expressions of her affection comforting; they played a game the two of them, both dancing around any deeper feelings and keeping their relationship strictly friendship and sex. It was getting harder to hold back though, because as time went by, Manya realised she was beginning to love Romo.

She smiled at him,

"It is all tidy, now." Manya paused, reluctant.

"Thank you for inviting me tonight. I appreciate that you…thought of me. Goodnight, Romo. Sleep well."

"Stay?" He asked in a small voice and Manya looked up at him, startled. She hadn't expected…

"Of course." She said without hesitation, and candle flickering in the breeze her movements created, she bolted the door shut and returned to the bedroom, and Romo. She licked her fingers and extinguished her candle, leaving them in the liquid light of one; just enough to illuminate them both faintly. Romo sat up with a grimace – his injuries still pained him, and no wonder, Manya realised as she unbuttoned his shirt for him. The scars were livid and lumpy still, bruising surrounding them in faint green and yellow, marring his otherwise unblemished flesh. He smiled down at her as she slid his shirt off his shoulders, the fabric crumpling on the floor.

"They aren't so bad."

"They look painful." Manya gently trailed her fingers over the largest scar and Romo's skin twitched under her touch.

"A little, but that _is_ what you have to expect after being stabbed, I'm afraid. And they're healing well, or so Dr Cottle assures me."

The room was still and quiet as though it were holding its breath in the moment, and Manya felt a throb of desire. Gods, she was supposed to be able to, if not control, then at least moderate her feelings. She was trained in psychology, she understood the complexities of attraction and love and relationships, and yet she couldn't stop herself from feelings things that she knew Romo was scared of returning. If he even felt them. But tonight, she suspected that perhaps he did.

"Let me." Romo unzipped Manya's dress and she stepped out of it, unhooked her bra and began to slide down her briefs. Romo's hands stilled hers and he shook his head.

"Not tonight. I just…" He trailed off and Manya nodded, didn't speak.

The bed was cosy and Romo slid in after her, naked but for a pair of boxers, his arms pulling her close, warm around her body. She nestled up against his side and laid her head on his shoulder. This was nice, and disconcertingly unusual. Manya never stayed unless they were having sex. Cuddling, yes, they did that, but only as something that naturally came after sex, never as a thing on its own. That would be too intimate for Romo to accept. There was a change in the air, and it thrilled in her fingertips, buzzed in her tired mind.

"You smell good." Romo said, sleepily content. Such an innocent little comment to an outside observer, but to them it was meaningful, important – the tone of Romo's voice, the way his fingers stroked over her shoulder as he spoke. Manya's heart thudded hard and fast and her hand splayed out flat over Romo's chest, feeling the slow steady lub-dub of his heart in contrast to hers.

"Tonight was…interesting… Eventful. Dramatic, even. I _am_ sorry it did not work out the way you had hoped."

"Oh, I was being foolishly optimistic. I should have known better. For some reason I – ridiculously – allowed myself to hope that a social interaction like dinner might help people see the similarities between themselves, rather than focusing on the differences. However Lee's reaction was…an anomaly I did not anticipate." He huffed a soft self-deprecating laugh.

"It was not my finest plan, at any rate, and admittedly my follow-through was bloody awful."

"Well, I must admit, Romo, it was hardly the convoluted tangle you usually come up with. Perhaps it needed one or two more twists and turns to be successful. But personally, I thought your motivational speech was…very…motivational…"

He shifted slightly so he could look Manya in the eye,

"Why thank you for that highest of praise." He sighed.

"I was, for once, trying to appeal to people's better natures, tonight. Hoping a mixture of social mores, peer-pressure and an innate wish to get along would seal the evening's success." He frowned slightly, annoyance creasing his eyebrows together.

"Well, I do believe I've learnt my final lesson on _that_ score."

"Now that's hardly fair. Many people are perfectly capable of setting aside their quarrels when bigger things are at stake. Just…"

"Not that Saul Tigh and Lee Adama. Frak, they're…"

"Headache inducing." Manya finished for him.

"They seem relatively sane when you speak to them individually, but put them together like that and gods, it's like an apocalypse." Romo complained, yawning and shifting so his chin rested on the top of Manya's head.

"They are both under a great deal of stress, as are you, Romo. People do not always behave coherently when they are overwhelmed by the situations they are in. And then when you add to it with the fact that they are both strong personalities, who dislike each other intensely…and with the amount of wine Tigh was drinking…well, for myself I am just glad the fighting was only verbal."

There was a long, rueful silence, and Manya could almost hear the thoughts ticking over in Romo's head. He took on too much. Everyone did, these days. You could hardly avoid it. Manya herself grew a garden that produced enough to mostly feed her, worked as a therapist to the settlers, took turns at the day care centre whenever needed, and of course had her duties as Councillor. It all got too much, sometimes. She of course recognised when she absolutely needed to take a rest or risk burning out, but people like Lee Adama, or Romo? They did not.

"So, it is official now. You have acquired a VP." Manya said to break the long silence, her mouth taking on a thoughtful twist.

"I take it your conversation with Gaius Baltar today did not go according to plan, then."

She felt Romo shake his head 'no', his chin scraping over her hair.

"No, it didn't. He refused the offer. Actually _refused_. I have to say, I suspected his interest in the position might be lacking in comparison to how he would have reacted in the past. But I still didn't expect an outright _no_ like that." Romo's fingers tickled over Manya's side and she squirmed against him.

"I had thought that with a bit of effort, I'd be able to use my silver tongue to persuade him into taking on the position."

Manya giggled to herself and she although she couldn't see, she knew Romo was staring at her in puzzlement.

"Use your silver tongue on Gaius Baltar, hmm?" She teased, little giggles bubbling out of her periodically despite her attempts to stifle them, and Romo snorted.

"What a horrifying thought. _You_ have a filthy, filthy mind Ms Yelizarov."

"Positively Freudian." She responded fliply and cuddled closer into Romo.

"So Gaius rejected you, my poor President…and Tigh was the next on your list?" Manya understood the logic behind Romo choosing Tigh – he didn't have much choice in candidates she supposed – but still. Saul Tigh, the Vice-President. It was a disturbing thought. Manya didn't think Tigh was at all suited to the position. In fact she could hardly think of anyone _worse _suited than Saul Tigh.

"No, in fact. Baltar suggested I approach Karl Agathon." Romo's fingers trailed idly up Manya's waist to cup the curve of her breast and she made a soft sound before commenting,

"He'd make a good VP. But I take it from the lack of him, and the surplus of Saul Tigh, that he also refused?"

"Yes. But I fully anticipated that, which was why I hadn't planned on asking him in the first place. I just thought I might as well ask as not. But again, I was refused, and thus, I am stuck with _Tigh_. Today seems to have been a day of defeat for me, Manya. Both the tender, juicy flies I attempted to lure to the VP position refused to come into my metaphorical parlour… And I can't say I blame them. Or Tigh, for being so unhappy about being trapped into the job." Romo said, sighing a little. Manya hummed lightly, played her fingers lightly over his chest, tickling caresses. He complained about politics often; the Councillors, the paperwork, the responsibility, but he also obviously thrived on it all. It kept him busy, and Romo was the sort of man who needed to be busy – focusing on the external, lest he dwell too much on the internal – and the past.

"You love it. I know you do, Romo."

"Hmm. Love? I had no love for anything, until recently."

They both knew what he meant by that, and it wasn't politics. Manya instinctively curled a little closer against him, Romo's breath whispering warm on her hair, his arm tight around her. She knew this was as close as he would get to admitting it for a while yet. She reminded herself to not rush him – let him go at his own pace, or else risk pushing him away. Besides, this was nice – why should she want anymore? Focus on the present, on the pleasure of the moment. In ever grasping to attain more and more, one could completely miss what one already had, Manya reminded herself. She sighed, a happy little sound, leg hooking over Romo's and entwining them further.

Romo kissed her head beneath her loose mass of hair and reflected with the air of someone who had intimate knowledge of the subject,

"Life is a dismal existence without love."

# # #

Lee was curled into the foetal position on the bed he and Kara shared. She was right there beside him, but he felt alone in the encompassing darkness. He needed to get a grip, get a handle on things – his life was starting to fragment around him and he was just letting it all fall apart. What had happened to him? He wasn't this person. Or at least, he didn't want to be. Lee resolved to start being more proactive – sort all this crazy frakking shit out. Tigh's accusations that his father would be ashamed of him, disappointed, had wormed their way into Lee's brain. He couldn't help believing them. Lee wanted to be the leader – the man – that his father would be proud to have raised.

Lee rolled onto his back and stared up in the direction of the ceiling – unable to see it, the room pitch black on the new moon night. He held up his hand idly and couldn't see that either, not even when he held it inches away from his face. The events of dinner crawled unwelcome into his head and he pushed them away, refused to dwell on it. There was nothing he could do about the fiasco that had been dinner – it had already happened, and while embarrassing was hardly a major issue. So it had made him look like an absolute asshole, and Tigh had been furious at him – how was that any different than the usual, lately?

The things that were a major concern were the anti-tech movement, and Kara. Lee gnawed on the inside of his cheek and tried to make sense of his tangled thoughts. He mulled over the anti-tech movement first, it being marginally easier to deal with than thoughts of Kara and him and how they were barely hanging together by a fraying thread.

He couldn't condone violence, but there were no other workable options at this point. Unless Lee could convince Romo or the Council to come around to his point of view, the movement was frakked. Adrift in the black. He was stuck between a rock and a hard place; he refused to cause bloodshed, but he also refused to give up the cause. He realised uncomfortably, that sooner or later one of those would have to change, unless some miracle altered Romo Lampkin or the Council's opinions.

Romo's offer of a position on the Council was highly fortuitous. It would give Lee at least a _chance_ to make a small impact on the Council, to get them to take him seriously. Although, one man against the rest of the Council? How likely was it really that Lee could make a difference, he wondered pessimistically. Probably not that likely; miracles did not make a habit of gracing Lee Adama with their presence. The seat on the Council was an easy one for Romo to give away – it would pose no threat to the Council, and had the added benefit of hopefully placating Lee. Lee knew this, but despite that, the seat was still too good an opportunity to pass up. But he didn't foresee great changes being brought about by his presence on the Council.

In the end, Lee suspected he would either end up having to turn into just another violent revolutionary, or let the cause dwindle and die. Godsdamnit, neither of those were options Lee was happy with.

At least Paulla was under control for now. _He_ had the power now, in their little relationship. _He_ was the one who called the shots, and she was painfully aware of that fact. He would have to watch her carefully for a while for signs of furtive dissent, but he didn't think she'd make any outright attempts at revolt for some time. Lee's skin crawled as the memory of the way he had spoken to her during his speech earlier in the day sprang unbidden in his mind. The fear, the loathing, the words of agreement that he had dragged out of her throat. Paulla hated him and feared him, because she knew that he could hurt her, because he _had_ hurt her. Gods. Lee squeezed his eyes shut in the dark and bit his lip hard, bruising his own flesh. It sickened him, to have done that, but godsdamnit _it had worked_. Lee had done something he considered incredibly unethical to say the least, and yet it had accomplished exactly what he'd wanted.

This was where things started tangling messily in Lee's brain.

What was more important, the end or the means? Ethics or results? Did – he choked on the word even mentally – _assaulting_ some nasty, murderous woman really count as unethical? Or was she getting what she deserved?

Lee huffed a soft humourless laugh.

He was lying to himself. Trying to be brutally honest, he reframed his internal questions– what he was really trying to ask himself, was; is there a way I can justify having hurt Paulla? And leading on from that, was; and if so, can I justify using force and threats again in another situation? He knew that the right answer was no, he couldn't, but the appealing lure of the unethical option made him feel deeply uneasy.

He rolled onto his side again, facing away from Kara, and she shifted as well, and Lee realised she was awake. This whole time, she had been awake, and yet both of them just lay there, silent and uncommunicative. There was an aching gulf between them that Lee felt acutely, and he wondered if Kara really, truly cared enough to feel it too, or if she was oblivious. They may as well have been in separate beds in separate houses for all the interaction they had shared since falling into bed exhausted. The walk home had hardly been filled with conversation either, but Kara had at least been mentally present then; concerned about Lee's odd behaviour.

She had been set completely off-balance by his sudden outburst, and Lee couldn't blame her. It wasn't like him to react like that. It had almost been worth embarrassing himself like that just for the way Kara had been nervously solicitous all the way home – and of course, Tigh's face had been a sight he'd treasure. Kara had kept shooting him curious and worried glances on the way back to their cabin, her hand all twined in his as they made their way under the moon.

Lee kept smiling in the darkness, hand fumbling under the blankets and finding Kara's smooth thigh. She made no response, but let him keep his hand on her leg without protest, his fingers smoothing over her skin. She had to care, Lee told himself, to have been so worried about him. Of course, by the time they had gotten home Kara seemed to have gotten over her shock and retreated back into herself. Away from him.

He just couldn't figure out what it was that kept them from being fully happy, fully together. The wedge between them. It wasn't coming from him; it was all Kara. Lee believed her when she said she loved him, so what the frak was it that made her hold herself back from what they had? What they _could_ have, if she would just stop pushing Lee away.

His hand crept further up her thigh, over, fingers tugging at the plain cotton of her underwear, slipping beneath…

And she shifted, mumbled something grumpily unintelligible into her pillow, and shoved his hand unceremoniously away.

_Godsdamnit_.

# # #

"Frakking bitch. I'm still a godsdamned man. Aren't I? Huh? Huh?" Tigh growled the words out in between gasps, breath coming sharp and heavy. Ellen moaned beneath him, her legs wrapped up around his hips, fingers clawing into his upper arms as he cursed at her and frakked her, furious and so godsdamned _hot_ for her. Fury pumped through his veins like fire, and his brain swirled fuzzy from the wine and the anger, all redirected onto a willing Ellen.

"Oh gods, Saul! Yes…you…are… Oh – oh, _oh_ _gods_! _Frak_!" Ellen was crying out, breathy and desperate in his ear, her hands forcing his mouth to hers. Tigh kissed her hard and fierce, teeth nipping at her lips and his tongue pushing deep and mirroring in her mouth what he was doing to her further down. Ellen melted under him bonelessly, breasts heaving against him as she whimpered and panted.

"Frakking _bitch_." He took out his anger on her, and he knew that she loved it – craved it. It got her hot when he was like this, possessive and rough.

Sweat was beading on Tigh's brow, and his heart was galloping unevenly in his chest with the exertion, and Ellen writhed beneath him, head thrown back now as his mouth found her throat and sucked at it, nipped it, leaving a trail of red patches down along to her collarbone.

"You think I'm just a washed up old man?" He demanded of her, thrusting hard to punctuate his question,

"No, no, Saul…never..." Ellen gasped, nodding and clinging to him, mewling with each hard thrust. A flicker of triumph flared in Tigh's chest and he smiled at Ellen, grimly satisfied. He was going to frakking show her – show everyone. Colonel Saul Tigh still had some godsdamned life left in him.

"Now, Let's see just how old I am." Tigh said ominously as his hips paused, pinching one of Ellen's nipples hard between finger and thumb and revelling in the stifled sound of Ellen whimpering with both pleasure and fearful anticipation.

# # #

Ugh. Couldn't he just leave her alone? She was tired, still godsdamned confused and annoyed over the hostilities at Romo's, not to mention weirded out by Lee's behaviour, and _not_ in the mood. Starbuck growled, her face twisted half into her pillow.

"Lemme 'lone." And pushed his hand off her, curling tighter into a little ball on her side. She felt a twinge of guilt when Lee sighed heavily. But godsdamnit, it wasn't fair. It wasn't that Starbuck was angry with Lee; she just didn't feel like frakking. Things were weird. She shifted her head, folding the pillow double underneath her cheek and lay there staring at the wall for a minute. Lee lay silent behind her, and she could sense his frustration like a physical thing, filling the air, suffocating her.

She tried to distract herself so she didn't snap at him. The last thing they needed right now was more pointless arguments. Arguments – that made her think of the events of earlier in the night. Gods, dinner at Romo's had been a frak up of the first order. A total frakking disaster. What the President had been thinking Starbuck had no idea, but from the look of him during dinner he had been uncharacteristically not thinking quite as much as usual. His eyes had been fixed on Manya Yelizarov like a confusedly love-lorn teenager, and when he wasn't staring at her, he had seemed a little…distracted. In all fairness, he couldn't have anticipated Lee's outburst. No one had, not even Starbuck, and the memory of it still made her feel a little uneasy.

Her mind edged away from the image of Lee, so angry and cold.

It was nice that Romo had finally found someone to keep him company in his bed on the long cold nights. Since Landfall on Earth Starbuck had spent a lot of time with Romo Lampkin, and she had grown to like him, sort of. She had a lot of respect for him, at least. He deserved someone like the Councillor – supportive and understanding, willing to be there when needed without pressuring him for more. Working with Romo, Starbuck had been witness to snippets of the more platonic elements of their_ friendship_ for a while now, and she thought they were good together.

Starbuck wished she had that.

All the scattered pieces had been coalescing in her mind since that conversation with Head-Sam. Gods it had hurt, to hear him speak, feel his touch, while knowing for a certainty that he wasn't really there. Had it been just a product of her mind, or something else? Something more? Starbuck didn't know and she didn't much care, either. What she did know was that it had made it clear to her what she wanted. What she needed, what she longed for; the thing that would make her completely happy at last.

Starbuck wanted Sam.

It was a revelation she could have done without. She would have preferred to not figure out her feelings –just keep drifting in confusion. At least then there had been the possibility in Starbuck's mind that Lee was what she really truly wanted, and if she could only sort herself out she could be perfectly content with him. And now she knew she couldn't be. Not in the way she wanted to anyway. Gods. She wanted Sam, and she couldn't have him.

_Godsdamnit, Sam_.

This wasn't fair. It wasn't fair godsdamnit. Starbuck kicked at the blankets angrily, tearing them off her, stretching out onto her back and crossing her arms over her chest. Even in a godsdamned coma he pulled at her. Stopped her from letting go and moving on. She couldn't if she wanted to. And she didn't. Sam was wormed into her heart and brain, and anything other than him was second best. He lay down in Landfall in his damned tank, faded away to nothing but bones encased in pale skin, and she wanted to be down there with him, sitting cramped by the tank and holding his thin, cold fingers. She had Lee lying right beside her; warm, loving, responsive, gorgeous – and she would rather be holding the comatose Cylon's hand.

The funny thing was, that if the situation was reversed, and Lee was the one in a coma, and Sam lying next to her, Starbuck would be longing for Lee and ignoring Sam. There was something _frakked_ in her head. Something _broken_.

"Damnit." Starbuck whispered and clenched her fists, muscles all tensing and face screwing up in an expression hidden by the dark. Anger, frustration.

She had told herself so many times over the past few days that Lee needed her. That he loved her. That she _did_ love him. That she needed him just as much as he needed her. Repeated the thoughts in her head over and over until they throbbed in her brain endlessly. Told herself that just because something wasn't perfect, didn't mean it wasn't good. She might have this godsdamned longing for Sam, for what she couldn't have, but that didn't mean that what she had with Lee meant nothing. It was still good, special, important – something to hold onto, something _worth_ holding onto. And all of it was right and logical and practical, but Starbuck didn't feel it. Didn't know it deep in her bones. Maybe she was just afraid. Starbuck, afraid. Ha. She used to always have the reputation as being so fearless that she must be crazy. Took risks no one else would take, went on missions that others would die on – and came back alive. Shot down more raiders. Drank more than anyone else could handle. Gambled more, and won more. She was _Starbuck_. She wasn't ever afraid, not really – not where it could show, anyway.

And then everything went frakking pear-shaped, and she lost the magic.

Maybe it was time to get it back.

It had all started…well, Starbuck couldn't pinpoint the exact time; it had started coming apart so subtly that she couldn't place her finger on right when things had begun going bad for her. But the moment she had_ known_ that things weren't the same anymore, could never be, was when she saw her dead body on the 13th Colony. Suddenly nothing had been certain or safe, not even her.

Starbuck had told Head-Sam that she wasn't afraid anymore. And that had been the truth, for a moment. But right now, she was all coiled up with fear inside again.

Starbuck needed to find out who – or what – she was.

But how in the hell was she supposed to do that? The times that she had asked Sam about it, he hadn't helped her much. All riddles and obscure references that Starbuck couldn't make heads or tails out of. So what could she do next? Starbuck's conscious mind skirted around the idea that she too might be a Cylon, repelled by the possibility, but it was there underneath. And that deep-down fear was why she reluctantly brought forth a name from her mind; Ellen Tigh. She might be able to help, if Starbuck could convince her to. She was older than any of the others – and she remembered everything perfectly. She, out of anyone, would be the most likely to hold the answers, if there were any. Besides, it couldn't hurt to ask her. Except for costing Starbuck her pride, dignity and patience.

She made a face.

It was nice, to have a plan, even if it wasn't a very solid one. It was something to hold onto, to work towards. Purpose was important, and it was what she had been lacking – something that Admiral Adama had given her that Romo Lampkin, with all his double-edged words and twisty thoughts, couldn't. Starbuck realised with a shiver that she might not like what she found, if she actually managed to discover anything. But it was a risk she was willing to take.

If Starbuck knew what – who – she was, then everything would be simpler. So ridiculously optimistic that Romo would have a fit of hysterical, pitying laughter, she could see it in her mind's eye; all the pieces slotting into their right place, the confusion gone and replaced with certainty.

Now if only Starbuck could make things work with Lee, instead of all this tiptoeing around and trying not to argue and failing miserably. Trying to be a normal couple, while under the surface and periodically bubbling up were all the badly covered tensions and rifts.

Starbuck contemplated reaching out and touching Lee. Letting him know she wasn't angry. Trying to connect instead of pushing him away like she always frakking did.

Told herself again, _I love him, and he loves me_.

Get it together, Starbuck.

He needs you.

Stop frakking _hurting_ him.

Either do it or don't, but stop frakking him around.

It isn't fair on him.

Starbuck's hand reached out toward Lee blindly, rolling to face him, breathing in deep.

And then she yanked her hand back and rolled over, away from him, heart racing and feeling sick to her stomach, sweating with sudden flushed heat and berating herself for her stupidity, her cowardice. Hadn't she just been saying she wasn't afraid anymore?

_Frak_.

I love him, and he loves me, Starbuck told herself again and again, hoping eventually it would sound right. Fell asleep with the words circling round and round in her head, hollow and absent of all meaning.

# # #

The stars shone brilliantly like the miasmas of incandescent plasma that they were, tiny and twinkling in the black of the nightscape. A soft voice soothingly explained the scientific reason behind the twinkling,

"You see, it's the disturbance of the atmosphere that makes the stars twinkle. If we were in space they would be just flat points of light; no flicker or sparkle when viewed in a vacuum. In layman's terms, the movement of the air currents within our atmosphere makes the starlight bend and scatter. And that, Pheme, is why the stars are twinkling at you."

Gaius smiled down at the bundle of well-swaddled baby in his arms. She had fallen asleep during his lecture on the pinwheel shaped galaxy they resided within, the visible arm of thickly clustered stars and nebulas that streaked across the sky, the way it was slowly expanding and shifting, the infinite number of stars within the galaxy, and the infinite number of other galaxies that populated the universe. She had liked that one he thought, listening intently to the soft and low lilting sound of his voice, vaguely tracked his pointing finger with unfocused baby eyes.

They sat on the edge of the porch on the step so they could see the sky well, and a fat burning lamp was half-shuttered so Gaius could see Pheme as he quietly detailed the vista above them. Caprica slept inside sprawled out on the bed, snoring softly. She had fed Pheme and then Gaius had taken her for some midnight bonding. It was his favourite time, these quiet moments alone with Pheme, with the star-speckled sky a great dome above. The unimaginable enormity surrounding them; the billions upon trillions of stars and planets whirled together into their clusters of galaxies, all within an infinite vacuum. It was like being cradled in the bosom of the universe. Gaius smiled a little at his wandering thoughts and looked down at the baby cradled against _his_ bosom – well, no, chest, actually. He snorted a chuckle and Pheme startled in her sleep, little arms flinging wide open reflexively.

"Shh, it's alright, daddy's got you. It's okay." Gaius murmured apologetically to her, tucking her tiny limbs back into the swaddling blanket and gently jouncing her up and down in his arms. Pheme stirred and wriggled unhappily and Gaius stared up at the expansive sky again, the vast sea of stars glittering. He began speaking again in hushed tones,

"The scans from when we arrived in this system showed that the star this planet orbits is at a distance of 149.6 million kilometres on average. The light from the star takes approximately eight minutes to get here. We named it Helios, after one of the gods of Kobol."

The sound of his voice seemed to comfort Pheme, and he smiled down at her, half her fist shoved in her mouth, gnawing on it in her sleep. She couldn't be hungry – Caprica had fed her only half an hour or so again. Gaius thought perhaps she just liked the comfort of suckling, and wondered if it might be possible to make some sort of pacifier with the materials available to him. He began talking again, a strange almost painfully happy expanding sensation occurring in his chest when Pheme smiled as his voice rolled over her. He told himself that she was too little to be smiling yet, but then his mind postulated that half-human half-Cylon babies might indeed smile earlier, and Gaius resolved to ask Helo sometime soon about the logistics of raising a half-Cylon child.

"Helios was a handsome god, or so the stories say." Gaius weighted the last half of the sentence heavily. He didn't want Pheme soaking up myths as truths, even in her infancy when he knew that obviously, she couldn't understand a word he said.

"Crowned with the shining aureole of the Sun. He possessed the chariot of the sun, drawn by fire-darting steeds – Pyrois, Aeos, Aethon and Phlegon, and each day he drove the chariot across the sky." Gaius sighed and shook his head,

"And we named this star after him, a god who likely never existed, and if he did, then it was no doubt as an ordinary man who just happened to be great enough to be called and remembered as god. I'm pretty sure he never owned four horses on fire."

He looked up at the stars. Unfamiliar at first, he was now growing more used to them, the patterns the sparkling points of light made. Potential constellations, which while strange to him, would signify home to Pheme. One day she would be old enough to imagine pictures in the stars and lie on the grass out here with Gaius and name them – a lion, a bear, a great tree, a flower maybe. She would never know any other dome of night but this, which was why it was so important he told her these things. Even now, when she couldn't understand, it kept that past vivid in Gaius' mind.

It reminded him of where he came from; Aerilon, and the humble beginnings he had spat upon, and then ultimately returned to. He gazed about the blackness that surrounded him; their farm laying in the dark, flourishing and a thing to be proud of. The circle of his life; an enormously ironic cosmic joke. Speaking of the stars reminded him of Caprica-the-planet, as he thought of it now, and his selfish, cowardly life. The way he had treated his father. The destruction he had wrought upon his fellow humans. The shame and fear and arrogance all entwined, of every moment from the Fall, to the moment Gaius had decided to stay on Galactica and do the right thing for the right reasons, for possibly the first time in his life.

Yes, this life here on Earth was a new one, a second chance for Gaius – didn't Eupheme prove that by her very existence? But not a fresh start. No. The only way to avoid repeating your mistakes is to remember every mistake you have made, so that you know not to fall into them again. Gaius didn't want a fresh start – he would never be able to attain that. If he had a soul, it would be irredeemably stained by the crimes he had committed, condoned and compromised on. He would carry the memory and the burdens of his mistakes until he was dead, and one day he would share those memories with Eupheme, so that she could share them with her children. And on, and on, down the line, until the tale was mostly myth and the stark reality lost to the past – but the message still true.

Gaius could suddenly see how tales of the gods of Kobol and Helios came about.

He blinked away the heavy thoughts and focused on his daughter, enjoying a blissfully ignorant slumber in her father's careful grip. Gaius squinted up at the relative positions of the stars he had identified over months since landfall, nodding.

"Back on the Colonies the best current data indicated that the universe is approximately 3.6 billion years old. Nucleocosmochronology puts the estimated age of this galaxy at around 8.75 billion years old. This star system would have begun forming, according to scans before we made landfall and some careful calculations on my part, around 4.45 billion years ago."

The sense of awe that Gaius felt as he related the facts to his sleeping infant daughter was evident in his voice. The expanses of time were so immense as to be nearly incomprehensible.

"And now that it's after midnight, you, small creature, are seven days old. When compared to the scale of the universe, even if you lived to be a hundred, or even a thousand, your lifespan will still only be the tiniest blip that appears on the universe's radar, a fleeting speck when seen from the perspective of 13.6 billion years."

Gaius stroked his thumb over Pheme's little dimpled knuckles, exposed to the night air now that her hand had slipped from her mouth in sleep. Gaius loved her more than he could ever adequately express. All the poetic metaphors in the world, the words that typically expressed love, they were pitiful approximations for what he felt. So he had fallen into the words, the expression of feeling, which made the most sense to him as a scientifically immersed being.

"And yet, without you, it would all mean nothing to me now. Not even a blip on the radar. Without you, the grand scope of the universe is meaningless, just dry facts with no purpose or point to them." Gaius' throat closed up slightly with emotion, his voice tight. He hadn't ever thought it was possible to love like this, to the point where it hurt and ached inside his chest, clogged his throat, and took his breath away.

"_You_ are my universe, Pheme. Seven days old." He stared down at her sleeping face, every feature burnt into his memory. The shadows her lashes cast, the purse of her lips, the light downy fuzz of her eyebrows.

"_You_ are my grand scope. All the awe and wonder that 13.6 billion years can evoke, contained in nine pounds 2 ounces of _you_."

# # #

_Authors Note:_ And thus does _Episode Three: Said the Spider to the Fly_ end.

*bounces up and down excitedly* Wasn't that just the _best_ metaphor-thingy _ever_?

Apologies for the Tigh/Ellen sex, but I couldn't resist putting it in there. It fitted in with the story (or at least, didn't not fit. I thought it was appropriately jarring, which was what I wanted), and I just plain felt a dread compulsion to write them doing sexy filthy things

Anyway, what did you guys think of this chapter, the episode as a whole, and the character portrayal? Leave a _review_ and let me know!

Next up in two or three days, the Starbuck-centric story set between this episode and the next. _Interlude: Black and White Disorientation_, involves Starbuck, Starbuck's deep thoughts, Lee, two lions (not as straightforward as it sounds), and _zebras_! Yay for stripe-idy horses! Oh, and sex as well – but between who? There are so many pairings available in the cast of characters :p


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